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THE 

Union  Theological  Seminary 

IN  THE  CITY  OF  NEW  YORK : 

Its  Design 

AND 

Another  Decade  of  its  History. 

WITH    A    SKETCH    OF    THE    LIFE    AND    PUBLIC    SERVICES 
OF 

CHARLES  BUTLER,  LL.D. 


BY 
a.  L.  PREXTISS. 


ASBURY  PARK,  X.  J.: 

M.,  W.  &  C  PENNYPACKER, 
1899. 


Copyright,   1899, 

By  G.  L.  PKEXTISS, 

in  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain. 


All  Rights  Reserved. 


to 

all  true   lovers  of  tbe  Mx>inel^=ciiven 

tigbts  auD  liberties  of  Cbristian 

tbougbt  anO  scbolarsbip. 


M131875 


Composition  and  Presswork  by  M.,  W.  &  C.  Pennypacker, 
Seaside  Torch  Press. 


PREFACE. 


^His  volume,  although  prepared  at  the  request  of 
the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  Union  Theological 
Seminary  in  the  city  of  New  York,  is  published  on 
my  own  responsibility  alone.  The  subject  was  full  of 
difficulty  ;  and  if  the  work  is  marred  by  mistakes  and 
errors  of  judgment,  or  should  seem  to  some  readers  too 
severe  in  its  tone,  the  fault  is  mine,  not  that  of  the 
board.  And  yet  from  first  to  last  I  have  tried  to  write 
without  any  unseemly  passion  and  without  prejudice. 
The  book  has  cost  me  not  a  little  hard  work,  as  well 
as  trouble  of  mind  ;  it  is  anything  but  pleasant  to  crit- 
icise the  unwise  zeal,  misunderstandings  and  wrong 
conduct  of  good  men  ;  and  had  not  a  foresight  of  the 
closing  chapters  of  the  volume  relieved  the  pain  of 
writing  those  that  went  before,  I  should  have  been 
tempted  to  abandon  my  task  midway,  as  utterly  dis- 
tasteful if  not  hopeless.  •  For  much  of  the  best  material 
relating  to  the  history,  I  am  indebted  to  my  dear 
friend,  Dr.  Hastings.  It  was  found  in  eight  large 
volumes  of  newspaper  cuttings,  pamphlets  and  letters 
bearing  on  the  subject,  which,  with  a  sort  of  prophetic 
instinct,  he  had  collected  and  carefully  arranged  dur- 
ing the  long  conflict  between  Union  Seminary  and  the 
General  Assembly.  Without  the  help  thus  given  me, 
joined  to  the  constant  aid  and  comfort  of  his  wise 


^,j  PREFACE. 


counsel,  this  volume  would  have  been  simply  impos- 
sible. To  another  old  friend,  Mr.  D.  AVillis  James,  I 
am  also  greatly  indebted  for  assistance,  both  in  the 
way  of  encouragement  aiid  of  judicious,  timely  sugges- 
tions. Unwittingly  I  have  referred  twice,  somewhat 
at  length  and  in  the  same  language,  to  the  so-called 
si^oih  system  as  illustrating  the  point,  that  a  false  doc- 
trine or  principle  once  clothed  with  power,  is  sure, 
sooner  or  later,  to  exert  its  baleful  influence.  (See  pp. 
64,  Qb  and  pp.  238-240).  The  simple  truth  is,  my 
hatred  of  that  abominable  system  has  been  so  active 
for  half  a  century  that,  whenever  there  is  a  chance  to 
denounce  it  I  am  always  tempted  to  repeat  myself. 

The  sketch  of  my  revered  friend,  Charles  Butler, 
ueeds,  I  trust,  no  apology.  Much  of  it,  to  be  sure, 
hardly  belongs  to  the  special  subject  of  this  volume, 
but  the  whole  helps  to  show  how  Mr.  Butler  was  fitted 
to  render  such  inestimable  service  to  Union  Seminary. 
At  all  events  it  is  my  loving  tribute  to  one  of  the  best 
and  most  remarkable  men  I  have  been  privileged  to 
know  at  home  or  abroad.  At  his  urgent  entreaty,  not 
without  long  delay  and  a  certain  dread,  this  history 
was  undertaken ;  and  I  like  to  remember  that  one  of 
his  dying  hours  seemed  to  be  cheered  by  the  assurance 
that  the  work  had  been  actually  begun.  The  reader 
who  never  saw  Mr.  Butler's  benignant  countenance 
will  see  it  truthfully  pictured  on  the  frontispiece  as  he 

looked  in  his  ninety-third  year. 

G.  L.  p. 
New  York,  September  11,  1S99. 


CONTENTS. 


PART  FIRST. 
Chapter  I. 

THE  THEOEOGICAL  SEMINARIES  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 
BRANCH  OF  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH  AND 
THEIR  RELATION  TO  THE  GENERAL  ASSEMBLY. — 
ORIGIN  AND  DESIGN  OF  THE  UNION  THEOLOGICAL 
SEMINARY.  —  REUNION  AND  THE  THEOLOGICAL 
SEMINARIES. — THE  VETO  POWER  :  HOW  IT  AROSE 
AND   WHAT   IT   MEANT 1 

Chapter  II. 

THE    FIRST    EXERCISE   OF    THE    VETO    POWER    AND   ITS 

consequences. — THE   DETROIT   ASSEMBLY  ....  66 

Chapter  III. 

THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS. — SKETCH  OF  THE  CON- 
FLICT BETWEEN  UNION  SEMINARY  AND  THE  GEN- 
ERAL ASSEMBLY. — THE  ECCLESIASTICAL  VETO. — 
POSITION  OF  THE  ASSEMBLY'S  COMMITTEE  OF  CON- 
FERENCE.— ANTAGONISTIC  POSITION  OF  THE  SEM- 
INARY.— IMMEDIATE  ISSUE  OF  THE  STRUGGLE. — 
A   TRUCE 158 

Chapter   IV. 

REASONS  IN  FAVOR  OF  ANNULLING  THE  AGREEMENT 
OF  1870, — THE  GENERAL  ASSEMBLY  REQUESTED 
BY  THE  BOARD  OF  DIRECTORS  OF  UNION  SEMI- 
NARY TO  CONCUR  WITH  THEM  IN  THIS  SOLUTION 
OF   THE   PROBLEM 222 

Chapter   V. 

THE  MEMORIAL  OF  THE  BOARD  OF  DIRECTORS  OF 
UNION  SEMINARY  ASKING  THE  ASSEMBLY  TO 
JOIN  WITH  IT  IN  ANNULLING  THE  AGREEMENT 
OF    1870. — THE    ASSEMBLY    REFUSING    TO    COMPLY 


CONTENTS. 

WITH  THIS  REQUEST,  PROPOSES  ARBITRATION. — 
THE  SEMINARY  THEREUPON  SEVERS  ALL  CONNEC- 
TION WITH  THE  ASSEMBLY  CAUSED  BY  THE  AGREE- 
MENT OF  1870,  AND  RESUMES  ITS  ORIGINAL  FREE- 
DOM AND  INDEPENDENCE  OF  ECCLESIASTICAL 
CONTROL. — A  GENEROUS  GIFT. — SEQUEL  TO  THE 
assembly's  action  IN  REGARD  TO  UNION  SEMI- 
NARY   

Chapter  YI. 


BIOGRAPHICAL     SKETCHES    OF     DEPARTED     DIRECTORS 
AND   PROFESSORS 

PART  FIFTH. 

A    SKETCH    OF    THE    LIFE     AND    PUBLIC     SERVICES     OF 
CHARLES   BUTLER,  LL.D 

APPENDIX   

INDEX 


255 


BEARING  OF  THE  CONFLICT  WITH  THE  GENERAL  AS- 
SEMBLY UPON  THE  QUESTION  OF  ECCLESIASTICAL 
CONTROL  OF  THEOLOGICAL  SE:MINARIES. — LESSONS 
TAUGHT  BY  THIS  CONFLICT  RESPECTING  THE  DE- 
SIGN OF  UNION  SEMINARY  AND  THE  MOTIVES  OF 
ITS  FOUNDERS. — HOW  THE  CHARTER  FITS  INTO 
AND   SERVES   THE    DESIGN 293 

PART  SECOND. 

THE  CASE  OF  DR.  BRIGGS  ;  BEARING  ON  THE  JUDICIAL 
SYSTEM    OF   THE    PRESBYTERIAN    CHURCH  ;    DR.    R. 

w.  Patterson's  views  on  the  subject,  as  ex- 
pressed IN  letters  to  dr.  HASTINGS,  WRITTEN 
AT   THE   TIME 311 

PART   THIRD. 

INTERNAL     DEVELOPMENT     AND     EXPANSION    OF    THE 

SEMINARY   SINCE    1886 339 

THE   COURSES   OF   STUDY   AND   SCHEDULE 346 

THE   LIBRARY   AND   THE   ALUMNI 352 

THE     INAUGURATION     OF     A      NEW       PRESIDENT      AND 

GLANCES  AT  THE   FUTURE 362 

PART   FOURTH. 


387 


427 
533 
569 


Ipart  jFirst. 


THE 

IHnion  ZhcoloQicnl  Seminary 

IN    THE    CITY    OF    NEW    YORK: 

ANOTHER   DECADE   OF   ITS   HISTORY. 

(1888—1898.) 


CHAPTER   I. 

THE  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINAEIES  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 
BRANCH  OF  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH  AND  THEIR 
RELATIONS  TO  THE  GENERAL  ASSEMBLY. —  ORIGIN  AND 
DESIGN  OF  THE  UNION  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. — 
REUNION  AND  THE  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARIES.  —  THE 
VETO    POWER:      HOW     IT    AROSE    AND   WHAT    IT    MEANT. 

TT  is  not  likely  that  at  this  time  there  would  be 
any  call  for  a  second  volume  on  the  history  of 
the  Union  Theological  Seminary,  had  not  its  sixth 
decade  been  marked  by  a  controversy  with  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the 
United  States  of  America,  which  involved  the  auton- 
omy and  chartered  rights  of  the  institution.  While 
writing  The  Union  Theological  Seminary  in  the 
City  of  New  York  :  Historical  and  Biographi- 
cal   Sketches    of    its    First    Fifty    Years,    the 


2  THE    UXIOX   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

thought  of  such  a  struggle  did  not  cross  my  mind; 
nor,  so  far  as  I  know,  had  it  occurred  to  the  direc- 
tors, with  perhaps  one  exception,  or  to  the  faculty. 

The  position  asserted  by  Union  Seminary  cannot, 
therefore,  be  fully  understood  without  a  knowledge 
of  facts  not  recorded  or  even  referred  to  in  the 
Semi-Centennial  History.  The  only  passage  bearing 
directly  upon  the  subject  in  the  whole  volume  is  as 
follows  :  "  It  [the  seminary]  was  wholly  independ- 
ent, I  repeat,  of  direct  ecclesiastical  control ;  and  so 
it  continued  until  1870.  At  that  time,  in  the  inter- 
est of  reunion  and  of  larger  freedom  of  other  theo- 
logical seminaries,  whose  professors  had  heretofore 
been  chosen  by  the  General  Assembly,  it  generously 
relinquished  a  portion  of  its  own  autonomy." 

The  main  design  of  the  present  volume  is  to  give 
an  account  of  the  agreement  of  1870  between  the 
Union  Theological  Seminary  and  the  General  Assem- 
bly, and  to  explain  the  causes  which  led  to  the 
annulling  of  that  agreement  by  the  Board  of  Direc- 
tors of  the  seminary.  In  order  to  do  this  most 
effectually  it  will  be  necessary  to  consider,  first  of 
all,  the  ecclesiastical  status  of  the  theological  semi- 
naries connected  with  the  so-called  Old  School  branch 
of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United  States  of 
America  at  the  time  of  the  reunion  in  1869,  as  also 
the  origin  and  design  of  the  Union  Seminary.  Had 
not  that  seminary  differed  radically  in  its  origin, 
charter    and     ecclesiastical     position     from    the    Old 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OE  ITS  HISTORY.  3 

School  seminaries  no  such  controversy  as  that  which 
took  place  would  have  been  ^wssible.  This  will  ap- 
pear clearly  as  we  proceed. 

{a  )  Relations  of  theological  seminaries  in  the  Old 
School  branch  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  to  its  Gen- 
eral Assembly. 

These  relations  indicated  the  general  plan  and 
pattern  and  exhibited  the  characteristic  features  of 
the  institution  according  to  the  Old  School  tyj)e. 
What  then  was  the  ecclesiastical  status  of  Princeton, 
the  Western,  Northwestern,  and  Danville  semina- 
ries, all  belonging  to  that  branch,  when  the  first 
Assembly  of  the  reunited  Church  met  at  Philadel- 
phia on  May  19,  1870?  It  was  that  of  unqualified 
subjection  to  and  dependence  ujion  the  General 
Assembly.  With  one  exce23tion  they  derived  their 
origin  from  the  General  Assembly,  and  the  Assembly 
was  their  patron  and  the  fountain  of  their  powers. 
Such  was  the  "  plan,"  or  constitution,  upon  which 
they  had  been  organized  and  according  to  which  they 
were  governed  and  carried  on.  ^  The  General  Assem- 
bly appointed  their  professors  and  directors.  It  held 
in  its  hand  the  initiative,  as  also  the  final  decision, 
in  all  the  principal  matters  of  instruction,  policy  and 
discipline.  After  the  disruption  in  1838  the  semi- 
naries, then  connected  with  the  General  Assembly, 
passed  under  the  exclusive  control  of  the  Old  School 
branch,  which  continued  to  adminster  them   in  strict 


4  THE   UXION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

accordance  with  the  original  plan  of  1812, — the  plan 
upon  which  Princeton  was  founded.  Its  new  semi- 
naries were  all  fashioned  after  the  same  model.  The 
Seminary  of  the  Northwest,  now  McCormick,  will 
serve  as  a  good  illustration.  This  institution,  which 
had  been  started  at  New  Albany,  was  later  removed 
to  Chicago,  and  there,  through  the  munificent  bene- 
factions of  Mr.  McCormick,  entered  upon  its  present 
career  of  power  and  usefulness.  In  1859,  with  an 
amended  constitution,  it  came  under  the  full  control 
of  the  Old  School  General  Assembly.  What  such 
control  involved  ajDpears  from  Article  II,  Section  1,  of 
this  "amended  constitution."       It  is  as  follow^s : 

Sec.  1.  Tlie  General  Assembly  shall  have  the  general 
supervision  and  control  of  the  said  seminary,  and  of  all  its 
directors,  professors,  officers  and  agents ;  and  shall  have 
power  to  direct  as  to  its  management  in  all  respects,  and  as 
to  the  disposition  of  its  funds  and  property  ;  to  determine 
the  number  of  its  directors  and  professors,  and  to  appoint 
the  same,  and  to  prescribe  their  term  of  office ;  to  designate 
the  branches  of  study  to  be  pursued,  and  the  titles  and 
departments  of  the  respective  professors,  and  to  suspend  or 
remove  from  office  any  of  the  said  professors  at  its  discre- 
tion. And  shall  decide  all  questions  and  controversies 
arising  between  the  Board  of  Directors  and  professors,  or 
between  the  respective  professors ;  and  all  questions  referred 
to  it  by  the  Board  of  Directors ;  and  shall  ha\e  power  of 
its  own  motion  to  review  and  to  confirm,  reverse  or  modify 
any  decision  of  the  Board  of  Directors,  and  generally  have 
all  other  powers  necessary  for  the  accomphshment  of  the 
object  for  which  the  seminary  was  established. 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  Hf STORY.  5 

This  article  was  in  force  in  1870  at  the  time  of 
my  own  call  to  the  chair  of  Systematic  Theology  in 
the  institution.  And  while  in  regard  to  certain 
details  the  ecclesiastical  status  of  Princeton  and  the 
other  Old  School  seminaries  differed  from  that  of  the 
Seminary  of  the  Northwest,  all  of  them  were  alike 
in  the  matter  of  Assembly  control  and  in  the  prin- 
ciples underlying  that  control. 

{b  )  Origin,  design  and  ecclesiastical  status  of  Union 
Theological  Seminary. 

The  Union  Theological  Seminary  was  intended 
not  only  to  be  a  new  school  of  divinity,  but  also,  as 
such,  to  represent  a  distinct  type  of  religious  thought, 
sentiment  and  policy.  It  was  largely  the  growth  at 
once  of  the  fervid  evangelistic  spirit  of  the  time,  and 
of  that  devotion  to  the  cause  of  sacred  science  and  a 
learned  ministry,  which  marked  all  the  churches  of 
Puritan  origin.  In  establishing  it  the  founders,  who 
were  earnest,  practical  men,  aimed  to  embody  in  a 
permanent  form  certain  views  of  Christian  piety  and 
theological  training,  which  they  regarded  as  specially 
fitted  to  j^repare  young  men  for  effective  service  in  the 
ministry  of  the  Gospel  in  their  own  age.  And  in  car- 
rying out  these  views,  they  took  pains  to  organize  the 
institution  on  a  plan  in  harmony  with  them.  While 
providing  carefully  for  sound  Scriptural  teaching,  and 
avowing  also  their  adherence  to  Presbyterian  doctrine 
and  polity,  they  at  the  same  time  resolved  to  give  the 


6  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

seminary  perfect  freedom  and  self-control  in  the  man- 
agement of  its  own  affairs.  Their  noble  temper  of 
mind,  their  large  outlook,  and  the  sacredness  they 
attached  to  their  work,  may  be  seen  in  the  preamble  to 
the  constitution  of  the  seminary.  Here  are  portions 
of  it: 

That  the  design  of  the  founders  of  this  seminary  may  be 
publicly  known,  and  be  sacredly  regarded  by  the  directors, 
professors  and  students,  it  is  judged  proper  to  make  the 
following  preliminary  statement : 

A  number  of  Christians,  both  clergymen  and  laymen,  in 
the  cities  of  New  York  and  Brooklyn,  deeply  impressed 
with  the  claims  of  the  world  upon  the  Church  of  Christ,  to 
furnish  a  competent  supply  of  well-educated  and  pious  min- 
isters of  the  Gospel ;  impressed  also  with  the  inadequacy  of 
all  existing  means  for  this  purpose  ;  and  believing  that  large 
cities  furnish  many  peculiar  facilities  and  advantages  for 
conducting  theological  education ;  having,  after  several 
meetings  for  consultation  and  prayer,  again  convened  on  the 
18th  of  January,  A.  D.,  1836,  unanimously  adopted  the 
following  resolutions  and  declarations  : 

1.  Resolved,  In  humble  dependence  on  the  grace  of  God, 
to  attempt  the  establishment  of  a  theological  seminary  in  the 
city  of  New  York. 

2.  In  this  institution  it  is  the  design  of  the  founders  to 
furnish  the  means  of  a  full  and  thoroujjh  education  in  all 
the  subjects  taught  in  the  best  theological  seminaries  in  this 
or  other  countries. 

3.  Being  fully  persuaded  that  vital  godliness,  a  thorough 
education,  and  jiractical  training  in  the  works  of  benevolence 
and  pastoral  labor  are  all  essential  to  meet  the  wants  and 
promote    the    best  interests    of  the    kingdom    of  Christ,  the 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  7 

founders  of  this  seminary  design  that  its  students,  remaining 
under  pastoral  influence,  and  performing  the  duties  of  church 
members  in  the  several  churches  to  which  they  belong,  or 
with  which  they  worship,  in  prayer-meetings,  in  the  instruc- 
tion of  Sabbath-schools  and  Bible  classes,  and  being  conver- 
sant with  all  the  benevolent  efforts  of  the  present  day  in 
this  great  community,  shall  have  the  opportunity  of  adding 
to  solid  learning  and  true  piety  the  teachings  of  experience. 
4.  By  the  foregoing  advantages,  tlie  founders  hope  and 
expect,  with  the  blessing  of  God,  to  call  forth  and  enlist  in 
the  service  of  Christ  and  in  the  work  of  the  ministry,  genius, 
talent,  enlightened  piety,  and  missionary  zeal  ;  and  to  qual- 
ify many  for  the  labors  and  management  of  the  various 
religious  institutions,  seminaries  of  learning,  and  enterprises 
of  benevolence  which  characterize  the  present  times. 

The  founders  of  Union  Seminary  were  at  the  time 
mostly  pastors  or  members  of  churches,  nearly  all  of 
which  sided  later  with  the  so-called  New  School  branch. 
Of  the  clerical  directors  in  the  first  board  one  only 
adhered  after  the  rupture  to  the  Old  School,  and  he 
had  recently  come  from  a  Congregational  pastorate  in 
New  England.  Of  the  first  lay  directors,  also,  nearly 
all  belonged  to  the  New  School.  The  founders  were  in 
hearty  sympathy  with  Albert  Barnes,  Lyman  Beecher, 
and  men  of  that  stamp.  They  were  enthusiastic  be- 
lievers in  the  new  Christian  evangelism  at  home  and 
abroad.  They  believed  also  in  the  "  voluntary  princi- 
ple," and  were  exceedingly  jealous  of  all  "high-toned" 
ecclesiasticism.  They  had  no  confidence  in  heresy 
trials  as  the  way  to  defend  orthodoxy.     I  doubt  if  a 


8  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

single  one  of  them  looked  with  favor  upon  the  noted 
trials  of  Albert  Barnes  and  Dr.  Beecher ;  while  the 
most  of  them  regarded  these  trials  with  the  strongest 
disapproval.  The}^  hated  religious  quarrels  and  bick- 
erings. Their  sentiments  on  these  and  similar  points 
led  to  the  establishment  of  the  seminary,  found  expres- 
sion in  its  constitution,  and  have  shaped  its  policy 
from  that  day  to  this.  Here  is  their  own  account  of 
the  matter : 

It  is  the  design  of  the  founders  to  provide  a  theologiccd  sem- 
inary in  the  midst  of  the  greatest  and  most  growing  community 
in  America,  around  which  all  men  of  moderate  views  and 
feelings,  who  desire  to  live  free  from  party  strife,  and  to  stand 
aloof  from  all  extremes  of  doctrinal  speculation,  practical  rad- 
icalism, and  ecclesiastical  domination,  may  cordially  and 
affectionately  rally. 

In  order  to  keep  clear  of  all  extremes  of  "  ecclesias- 
tical domination,"  they  made  the  seminary  independ- 
ent alike  of  Presbytery,  of  Synod,  and  of  General 
Assembly.  Its  autonomy  was  complete  and  unques- 
tioned. As  comi^ared  with  Princeton  and  other  semi- 
naries of  the  earlier  type,  its  establishment  was  essen- 
tially a  new  departure.  In  keej^ing  clear  of  all  direct 
ecclesiastical  control  it  broke  with  the  old  traditions. 
This  was  in  part  the  result  of  providential  circum- 
stances ;  but  it  was  also,  none  the  less,  a  result  of 
deliberate  purpose  and  conviction.  The  founders  of 
Union  Seminary  held  views  respecting  the  best  plan 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  9 

of  a  school  of  divinity,  such  as  they  proposed  to  estab- 
lish, which  differed  materially  from  the  views  embodied 
in  the  "  plan "  of  Princeton  and  other  Old  School 
seminaries.  The  very  names  of  some  of  these  founders 
indicate  this  to  any  one  at  all  familiar  with  the  Pres- 
byterian Church  of  that  day. 

And  then  their  design,  as  it  will  be  seen,  was  not  so 
much  to  train  up  ministers  for  the  service  of  the  Pres- 
byterian Church  in  particular,  as  to  train  ministers 
and  men  for  the  great  work  of  evangelization  both  at 
home  and  abroad.  "  Deeply  impressed,"  to  quote 
again  their  own  wofds,  "  with  the  claims  of  the  world 
upon  the  Church  of  Christ,  to  furnish  a  competent 
supply  of  well-educated  and  pious  ministers  of  the 
Gospel ;  impressed  also  with  the  inadequacy  of  all 
existing  means  for  this  purpose ;  and  believing  that 
large  cities  furnish  many  peculiar  facilities  and  advan- 
tages for  conducting  theological  education,"  they 
resolved  "  in  humble  dependence  on  the  grace  of  God, 
to  establish  a  seminary  in  the  city  of  New  York, 
hoping  and  expecting  thereby,  with  the  divine  bless- 
ing, to  call  forth  and  enlist  in  the  service  of  Christ  and 
in  the  work  of  the  ministry,  genius,  talent,  enlightened 
piety,  and  missionary  zeal ;  and  to  qualify  many  for 
the  labors  and  management  of  the  various  religious 
institutions,  seminaries  of  learning  and  enterprises  of 
benevolence  which  characterize  the  present  times." 
Such  was  the  catholic  and  world-wide  scope  of  their 
design.     It  was  in  order  more  effectually  to  carry  out 


K)  THE   UNIOS    THEOLOGICAL   SEM/XARV. 

this  plan  tliat  they  determined  to  make  their  seminary 
a  free,  self-governing  institution,  and  thus  to  keej)  it 
clear  of  all  extremes  of  "  ecclesiastical  domination." 
This  design  qualified  and  gave  a  peculiar  cast  to  the 
whole  movement.  It  contradistinguished  Union  from 
seminaries  of  the  old  type.  In  their  generic  character 
as  Presbyterian,  orthodox  schools  of  divinity,  with  the 
Bible  as  their  great  charter,  and  the  training  of  a 
learned  and  godly  ministry  as  their  practical  aim,  the 
old  and  the  new  were  alike.  But  in  respect  of  their 
origin,  their  patron,  the  fountain  of  their  powers,  and, 
as  a  consequence,  in  their  governm*ent  and  administra- 
tion, they  were  essentially  unlike. 

This  radical  difference  was  regarded  by  many,  long 
weddt^l  to  the  old  plan  of  1812,  wdth  strong  disfavor. 
An  illustration  of  this  occurs  in  a  letter  of  Dr.  A.  A. 
Hodge  to  Dr.  Henry  B.  Smith,  in  wdiich  he  character- 
izes Union  Seminary  as  under  an  "  iri^esponsible  Board 
of  Trustees."  Of  course  Dr.  Hodge  meant  no  offence 
in  using  such  a  term,  and  yet  from  the  point  of  view 
of  a  director,  or  professor  of  Union  Seminary,  the  term 
was  offensive  in  a  high  degree.  Every  director  of 
Union  Seminary  held  himself  responsible  to  God,  to 
conscience,  and  to  public  opinion  ;  and  every  director 
solemnly  bound  himself  to  maintain  the  plan  and  con- 
stitution of  the  seminary  as  a  Presbyterian,  orthodox 
institution  of  Christian  learning.  But  it  was  not 
under  ecclesiastical  control,  and  that  was  Dr.  Hodge's 
comj)laint.     In  order  to  purge  it  of  this  "irresponsible" 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  \\ 

character,  he  urged  Professor  Smith  to  recommend  to 
the  New  School  branch  of  the  Joint  Committee  on  Re- 
union, that  "  all  the  seminaries  of  both  parties  l)e,  as  a 
condition  of  union,  brought  in  on  the  same  basis,  so 
that  there  may  be  jierfect  equality."  Here  in  a  nut- 
shell is  the  reason  why  Professor  Smith  considered  Dr. 
Hodge's  scheme  inadmissible.  It  proposed  in  effect  to 
"mediatize"  Union  Seminary  ;  in  other  words,  to  make 
a  radical  change  in  the  ])Va\\  and  constitution  of  the 
seminary  by  transferring  the  ultimate  center  of  power 
and  authority  from  the  institution  itself  to  one  or  more 
adjacent  Synods. 

All  this  was  in  entire  accordance  with  the  general 
theory  and  practice  of  the  Old  School  branch,  but  it 
ran  wholly  counter  to  the  ruling  sentiment  of  the  New 
School  branch.  The  principle  of  local  ecclesiastical 
control  was  indeed  recognized  in  the  case  of  Auburn — 
a  seminary  founded  under  the  old  system — and  it  is 
quite  possible  that  there  w^ere  some  advocates  of  this 
principle  among  New  School  men  in  other  parts  of 
that  branch.  But  I  am  not  aware  that  any  attemj)t 
was  ever  made,  or  any  public  desire  ever  expressed,  to 
bring  Union  Seminary  under  Assembly  control.  The 
feeling  on  the  subject  was  indicated  in  a  resolution 
adopted  by  the  New  School  General  Assembly  of  1857, 
a  part  of  which  is  as  follows  : 

The  General  Assembly  would  not  claim  any  authority 
over  the  institutions  where  our  ministry  are  educated ;  lint 
it    is    hereby  requested   of     the    faculties    of    the    Union    and 


12  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL    SEMIN'ARY. 

Auburn  Theological  Seminaries  in  New  York,  of  Lane  Sem- 
inary near  Cincinnati,  and  Maryville  Seminary  in  Tennessee, 
and  of  any  other  similar  institutions  hereafter  established,  to 
furnish  the  General  Assembly  each  year,  through  its  Perma- 
nent Committee  on  Education  for  the  Ministry,  with  a 
written  statement  of  their  condition,  advantages  and  pros- 
pects, the  names  of  their  professors,  the  ordinary  yearly  ex- 
penses, and  any  other  matters  of  general  interest  to  the  Church, 
to  be  read  to  the  Assembly,  and  published  as  an  appendix 
to  the  annual  report  of  said  committee  ;  and  the  General  Sec- 
retary is  hereby  charged  with  the  duty  of  presenting  this  request 
annually  to  said  faculties,  in  time  to  receive  their  written 
report  before  the   meeting  of  the  General  Assembly. 

The  request  of  the  Assembly  was  gladly  complied 
with  and  had  the  happiest  effect.  The  relations  of 
the  seminary  to  the  Church  became  still  more  close 
and  trustful.  Union  always  considered  itself  as  an 
institution  of  the  New  School  Church.  Its  professors 
were  sent  as  commissioners  to  the  General  Assembly. 
The  names  of  William  Adam^  Thomas  H.  Skinner 
and  Henry  B.  Smith  are  among  the  most  honored  on 
its  roll  of  Moderators.  After  1857  the  seminary 
reported  annually  to  the  New  School  Assembly,  pre- 
cisely as  it  reported  after  1870  to  the  Assembly  of 
the    united   Church. 

(c.)  Action  of  the  Joint  Committee  on  Reunion  with 
regard  to  the    theological   seminaries. 

The  question  of  the  theological  seminaries  was 
one  of  the  most  difficult  and  perplexing  with  which 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  13 

the  Joint  Committee  on  Reunion,  appointed  in  1866, 
had  to  deal.  This  was  owing  partly  to  the  nature  of 
the  subject,  and  in  part  to  the  great  diversity  of  origin, 
constitution,  environment  and  legal  relations  which 
marked  these  institutions.  The  ninth  article  of  "the 
proposed  terms  of  reunion  between  the  two  branches 
of  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  the  United  States  of 
America,"  reported  by  the  chairmen,  Drs.  Beatty  and 
Adams,  to  their  respective  Assemblies  in  May,  1867, 
was  as  follows : 

If  at  any  time,  after  the  union  has  been  effected,  any  of 
the  theological  seminaries  under  the  care  and  control  of  the 
General  Assembly,  shall  desire  to  put  themselves  under 
Synodical  control,  they  shall  be  permitted  to  do  so  at  the 
request  of  their  Boards  of  Directors ;  and  those  seminaries 
which  are  independent  in  their  organization  shall  have  the 
privilege  of  putting  themselves  under  ecclesiastical  control, 
to  the  end  that,  if  practicable,  a  system  of  ecclesiastical 
supervision  of  such  institutions  may  ultimately  prevail 
through  the  entire  imited  Church. 

The  ninth  article,  as  reported  by  the  Joint  Com- 
mittee and  adopted  by  the  two  General  Assemblies  in 
1868,  varied  somewhat  from  this.     It  was  as  follows : 

In  order  to  a  uniform  system  of  ecclesiastical  supervision 
those  theological  seminaries  that  are  now  under  Assembly 
control  may,  if  their  Boards  6f  Direction  so  elect,  be  trans- 
ferred to  the  watch  and  care  of  one  or  more  of  the  adjacent 
Synods,  and  the  other  seminaries  are  advised  to  introduce,  as 
far   as    may    be,    into    their    constitutions,    the    principle  of 


14  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

Synodical  or  Assembly  supervision  ;  in  which  case  they  shall 
be  entitled  to  an  official  recognition  and  approbation  on  the 
part  of  the  Geijeral  Assembly. 

The  changes  in  the  article  are  highly  significant, 
and  indicate  several  points  of  objection  made  to  it  as 
reported  in  18(^7.  This  amended  article  reappeared 
among  the  so-called  "  concurrent  declarations  "  of  the 
General  Assemblies  of  1869.  In  explaining  it  in  their 
report  of  1868,  the  chairmen  said : 

A  recommendation  looking:  to  some  uniformity  of  eccles- 
iastical  supervision,  is  all  which  the  committee  felt  to  be 
within  their  province  or  that  of  the  Assembly,  except  that 
those  seminaries,  now  belonging  to  either  branch  of  the 
Church,  should  have  every  guarantee  and  protection  for 
their  chartered  rights  which  they  might  desire. 

This  passage,  both  in  its  mild,  even  subdued  tone, 
and  in  its  explanation,  throws  a  clear  light  back  upon 
the  devious  path  by  which  the  committee  had  reached 
their  conclusion.  The  discussion  and  criticism  occa- 
sioned by  their  plan,  as  reported  in  1867,  had  con- 
vinced them  that  the  whole  subject  w^as  beset  with 
difficulties  and  perils,  which  required  very  delicate 
as  well  as  skillful  treatment.  "^4  recommendation'' 
[the  italics  are  their  own]  looking  to  soine  uniformity 
of  ecclesiastical  supervision,  is  all  which  the  committee 
felt  to  be  within  their  province  or  that  of  the  Assembly, 
except  that  tlie  "  chartered  rights  "  of  all  the  seminaries 
of  either  branch   of  the   Church   should   be  carefully 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  15 

guaranteed  and  jirotected.  This  was  quite  different 
language  from  that  used  in  1867  :  "  Those  seminaries 
which  are  independent  in  their  organization  shall  have 
the  j)rivilege  of  putting  themselves  under  ecclesiastical 
control." 

The  temper  of  mind,  as  also  the  way,  in  which  the 
Joint  Committee  and  the  friends  of  reunion  generally 
had  come  to  regard  the  question  of  the  theological 
seminaries,  may  be  seen  most  distinctly,  perhaps,  in  the 
speech  of  Rev.  George  W.  Musgrave,  D.  D.,  LL.  D., 
made  on  the  occasion  of  the  presentation  of  the  report 
of  the  Joint  Committee  of  Conference  to  the  Old 
School  General  Assembly,  sitting  in  the  Brick  Church 
in  the  city  of  New  York,  May  27,  1869,  No  one  who 
heard  it  is  likely  ever  to  forget  that  speech  or  the 
remarkable  old  man  who  made  it.  A  few  extracts  will 
indicate  its  spirit  and  its  bearing  on  the  question  now 
under  discussion.  Its  opening  sentences  were  as 
follows : 

It  affords  me  great  pleasure  to  be  able  to  report  a  plan 
of  union  between  what  are  known  as  the  Old  and  New 
School  bodies,  and  to  be  able  to  say  that  our  report  is 
unanimous,  and  is  signed  by  every  member  of  each  com- 
mittee. The  "Joint  Committee  report  three  papers  to  the 
Assembly.  The  first  is  a  plan  of  union,  containing  the 
basis,  which  will  be  sent  down  to  the  Presbyteries  for  their 
acceptance  or  rejection.  The  second  paper  is  a  declaration, 
made  that  there  may  be  a  good  understanding  between  the 
two  branches.  This  paper  is  not  a  compact  or  covenant 
bnt  it   is   a   recommendation    of  certain    arrangements   as    to 


16  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

seminaries,  boards,  etc.  It  is  no  part  of  the  basis  or  terms 
of  union.  It  only  recommends  certain  arrangements  as  suit- 
able to  be  adopted.  The  third  paper  is  one  recommending 
a  day  of  prayer  to  Almighty  God  for  His  guidance  and  pres- 
ence, that  Presbyteries  may  be  under  diyine  influence  Ayhen 
they  come  to  yote  upon  this  momentous  question. 

In  the  course  of  his  speech  Dr.  Musgrave  thus 
referred  to  the  "  concurrent  declarations  "  on  theolog- 
ical seminaries,  boards,  and  other  matters  pertaining 
to  the  interests  of  the  Church,  when  it  should  become 
united : 

I  have  already  stated  to  the  Assembly  that  these  articles 
don't  form  a  part  of  the  basis.  They  are  not  a  compact  or 
covenant,  but  they  suggest  to  the  Assembly  what  are  suitable 
arrangements.  I  will  not  repeat  what  I  have  said,  except 
to  call  your  attention  to  that  important  distinction.  They 
are  not  terms  of  the  union.  They  may  be  amended  or 
modified^  as  any  future  Assembly  may  deem  proper.  We 
told  our  brethren  that  we  were  unwilling  to  tie  the  future 
hands  of  the  Church  of  God;  and  I,  for  one,  was  very 
decided  on  that  point.  And  I  will  say  to  you  that  I  would 
have  risked  the  failure  of  this  union  at  the  present  time, 
rather  than  concede  that  these  articles  should  be  unchange- 
able, though  I  cannot  foresee  that  there  will  be  any  necessity 
in  the  future  to  change  them.  I  am  neither  a  prophet,  nor 
the  son  of  a  prophet ;  but  I  think  I  have  some  little  com- 
mon sense,  and  I  felt  that  it  would  be  unsafe  for  us  to 
imperil  the  future  by  trammeling  the  Church  of  God,  pre- 
venting it  from  exercising  its  liberty,  and  from  dealing  with 
circumstances  as  they  might  arise  in  the  providence  of  God. 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  17 

Sir,  we  were  very  decided  and  determined  that  those  arti- 
cles should  not  form  a  part  of  the  compact,  but  that  they 
should  be  suggestions  and  recommendations,  in  order  that 
the  Presbyteries  should  get  an  understanding  between  the 
parties.  But,  sir,  it  is  due  to  fairness  that  I  should  say, 
and  I  repeat  it  now  publicly  in  order  that  it  may  have  a 
response  from  this  house,  we  did  say  to  these  brethren,  "  We 
will  not  consent  to  make  these  articles  a  covenant.  We 
won't  adopt  them  as  a  legal  compact,  binding,  upon  the 
future ;  yet  we  are  acting  in  good  faith  and  as  honorable 
men,  and  we  say  to  you  that  we  will  not  change  them  at 
any  future  time  without  obviously  good  and  sufficient 
reasons." 

It  is  enough  to  say,  in  proof  of  Dr.  Musgrave's 
"  common  sense  "  and  foresight,  that  had  the  "  con- 
current declarations  "  been  made  a  term  of  reunion,  the 
effect  in  the  case  of  Princeton  Seminary  would  have 
been  to  imperil  all  its  endowments.  Dr.  Musgrave's 
expressions,  "  We  tokl  our  brethren,"  "  We  did  say  to 
these  brethren,"  refer  to  the  New  School  brethren,  and 
are  explained  by  the  following  extract  from  a  sketch 
of  "  The  Assemblies  of  1869,"  written  by  the  Rev.  Dr. 
M.  W.  Jacobus,  Moderator  of  the  Old  School  Assembly  : 

It  may  be  mentioned,  as  part  of  the  inside  history  of  the 
negotiations,  that  when  the  Joint  Sub-Committee  met  for  the 
purpose  of  engrossing  what  had  been  passed  upon  by  the 
Joint  Committee  of  Conference,  and  to  prepare  the  report  to 
the  Assembly,  one  of  the  members  (N.  S.)  objected  to  the 
insertion  of  the  words  contained  in  the  preamble  to  the  con- 
current  declaration,    viz  :    "  Not    as    articles    of  compact    or 


18  THE   UNION  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

covenant,  but  as  in  their  judgment  proper  and  equitable 
arrangements."  He  admitted  that  the  hinguage  fairly  ex- 
pressed -what  had  been  agreed  upon,  that  the  articles  referred 
to  were  merely  recommended,  and  if  adopted  by  the  united 
Church,  might  hereafter,  for  good  and  sufficient  reasons,  be 
modified  or  repealed.  But  he  argued  that  the  insertion  of 
the  words  above  referred  to  would  make  the  imj^ression  that 
the  articles  are  ephemeral,  and  would  have  a  tendency  to 
invite  change.  There  was  force  in  the  objection.  But  to 
this  it  was  well  replied,  that  the  words  ought  to  be  inserted. 
1.  Because  they  fairly  express  our  mutual  good  understand- 
ing. 2.  Because,  if  omitted,  it  might  be  hereafter  argued 
that  the  articles  were  intended  to  be  a  compact  between  the 
two  parties,  which  could  not  be  honorably  modified  or  re- 
pealed. 3.  Because  it  was  held  to  be  in  the  highest  degree 
important  that  the  united  Church  should  be  left  entirely  free 
to  adapt  itself  to  any  changes  which,  in  the  future  develop- 
ments of  Providence,  might  be  deemed  necessary  or  expe- 
dient. This  difference  threatened  to  be  a  stumbling-block 
in  the  way,  even  within  reach  of  the  goal.  At  this  very 
crisis,  however,  an  eminent  layman  of  the  New  School  com- 
mittee joined  in  this  view  of  the  case,  Avith  such  cogent 
reasons  as  to  prove  the  correctness  of  the  position.  Upon 
re-examination  of  the  paragraph,  the  dissent  was  revoked, 
and  the  entire  paper  was  then  adopted  by  a  unanimous  vote. 
This  meeting  of  the  Joint  Sub-Committee  was  held  on  the 
evening  preceding  the  day  of  presenting  the  report  to  the 
General  Assembly,  and  it  was  not  until  eleven  o'clock  at 
night  that  the  decisive  vote  was  reached  in  the  committee 
room. 

{d)   Tlie  veto  in  the  election  of  its  professors  as  con- 
ceded by  Union  Seminary  to  the   General  Assembly. 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  19 

We  come  now  to  a  main  object  of  this  narrative, 
namely,  the  occasion,  meaning  and  force  of  the  veto 
power  offered  and  given  to  the  General  Assembly  in 
1870,  by  Union  Seminary.  I  have  shown  what  was 
the  action  of  the  Joint  Committee  respecting  the  theo- 
logical seminaries  up  to  the  time  of  the  reunion.  As 
the  result  of  long  and  patient  consideration  aided  by 
varied  discussion  throughout  the  two  Churches,  the 
ninth  article,  or  "  concurrent  declaration,"  already 
given,  had  been  reported  to  the  General  Assemblies 
and  adopted  by  both  bodies.  This  article  is  not  a  com- 
pact or  covenant,  but  a  "  recommendation  "  and  nothing 
more.  So  the  case  stood,  when  the  first  General 
Assembly  of  the  reunited  Church  met  at  Philadelj^hia, 
in  May,  1870.  The  work  of  this  Assembly  was  prin- 
cipally one  of  readjustment  and  reconstruction.  TlirC 
articles  approved  by  the  two  Assemblies  at  New  York, 
in  1869,  not  as  a  part  of  the  basis  of  union,  or  as  a 
legal  compact,  but  as  "  suitable  arrangements "  were 
now  to  be  acted  ujDon.  The  varying,  not  to  say  more 
or  less  conflicting,  institutions,  legal  rights,  customs, 
agencies,  properties  and  activities  of  both  branches, 
Old  School  and  New,  now  no  longer  two  but  one,  were 
all  to  be  brought  into  harmonious  relations,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  changed  order  of  things  and  the  new 
organic  life.  I  was  a  member  of  the  Assembly  of 
1870,  and  can  testify  as  an  eye  witness,  that  its  ruling 
spirit  from  beginning  to  end  was  the  spirit,  not  of  fear, 
or  suspicion,  or  jealousy,  or  any  such  thing,  but  of 


20  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

power  and  of  love,  and  of  a  sound  mind.  The  pres- 
ence of  the  sturdiest,  foremost  opponent  of  reunion,  Dr. 
Charles  Hodge,  if  not  as  a  commissioner,  yet  as  a  most 
interested  looker-on  and  even  friendly  adviser,  along 
with  the  beautiful  tribute  of  high  regard  and  affection 
paid  by  New  and  Old  School  men  alike  to  Albert 
Barnes,  then  about  to  joass  to  his  great  reward,  happily 
symbolized  this  sj^irit. 

As  might  have  been  anticipated,  William  Adams 
was  placed  at  the  head  of  the  Standing  Committee  on 
Theological  Seminaries.  As  chairman  of  the  New 
School  jDart  of  the  Joint  Committee  on  Reunion,  he  had 
won  the  confidence  and  admiration  of  the  whole 
Church,  alike  by  his  wisdom,  his  Christian  temper,  his 
felicitous  addresses  and  his  masterly  reports.  But  in- 
aemuch  as  all  the  theological  seminaries  connected 
with  the  Assembly  belonged  to  the  Old  School,  Dr. 
Adams  felt  that  delicacy  forbade  his  acting  as  chair- 
man of  the  committee  on  that  subject.  He,  therefore, 
as  a  personal  favor,  asked  permission  to  decline 
the  appointment,  suggesting  Dr.  John  C.  Backus 
in  his  place.  But  the  Assembly  insisted  that  he 
should  serve. 

"  I  think,"  said  Dr.  Musgrave,  himself  a  director  of 
Princeton,  "the  Moderator  has  shown  his  wisdom  in 
ajjpointing  a  man  so  entirely  acceptable  to  all  this 
house.  We  have  no  rivalship,  no  jealousies,  no  fear, 
but  perfect  confidence  and  love,  and  the  Old  School 
men  would  rather  Dr.  Adams  should  be  in  that  })08i- 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  21 

tion,  because  he  was  once  a  New  School  man.     We 
have  this  additional  evidence  that  we  are  one."* 

And  now,  before  proceeding  further,  let  us  return  to 
Union  Seminary,  and  the  veto  power  offered  by  it  to 
the  General  Assembly  in  the  election  of  its  professors. 

(e  )  Reasons  and  influences  that  induced  Vnio7i  Sem- 
inary in  1870,  to  give  up  a  portion  of  its  autonomy. 

1.  First  of  all,  it  was  done  in  the  hope  of  furthering 
thereby  the  harmony  and  prosperity  of  the  Presby- 
terian Church.  Keunion  had  been  already  accom- 
plished, and  Union  Seminary  had  from  the  first  thrown 
the  whole  weight  of  its  influence  in  favor  of  the  move- 
ment. Henry  B.  Smith  had  struck  its  keynote,  and 
later,  in  a  contest  of  the  pen,  had  met  its  ablest  foe. 
He  was  indeed,  as  President  Patton  afterwards  called 
him,  "  the  Hero  of  Reunion."  Dr.  Shedd  in  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly  at  Albany,  in  18G8,  had  vindicated  the 
cause  of  reunion,  and  at  the  same  time  the  orthodoxy 
of  the  New  School  against  the  charges  of  Drs.  Charles 
and  A.  A.  Hodge,  Dr.  Breckinridge  and  other  Prince- 
ton and  Old  School  leaders.  Their  colleague,  Thomas 
H.  Skinner,  a  very  eminent  New  School  leader,  was  in 
heartiest  sympathy  with  them ;  while  William  Adams, 
Jonathan  F.  Stearns  and  Edwin  F.  Hatfield,  all  direc- 

*  These  two  eminent  leaders  of  the  Assembly  at  Philadelphia  early  attracted 
the  attention  of  spectators  in  the  galleries,  who  by  way  of  characterizing  their 
peculiar  traits,  jokingly  named  Dr.  ]\Iusgrave,  "  Old  Unanimous,"  and  Dr. 
Adams,  "Old  Magnanimous."  See  a  letter  of  Rev.  Dr.  T.  L.  Cuyler,  in  "  I7(e 
Ecancjeli.'it,"  written  at  the  time,  in  which  is  a  graphic  pen-picture  of  the 
Assembly  of  1870. 


22  THE   UNION  THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

tors  of  Union,  had  been  among  the  most  active 
members  of  the  Joint  Committee.  Such  ardent  friends 
of  reunion  as  William  E.  Dodge,  Charles  Butler, 
Richard  T.  Haines,  Norman  White  and  other  noted 
laymen  also  belonged  to  the  Union  board.  It  was 
altogether  natural,  therefore,  that  Union  Seminary 
should  have  felt  deeply  interested  in  removing,  as  far 
as  possible,  all  obstacles  to  the  complete  success  of  re- 
union out  of  the  way.  Dr.  Adams  was  especially 
anxious  that  the  wheels  of  the  great  Church  organiza- 
tion, whose  strength  was  now  doubled,  and  which  he 
believed  to  be  fraught  with  vast  power  for  good, 
should  move  right  on  without  friction.  He  wielded 
at  this  time  a  greater  influence  than  any  other 
director  of  Union  Seminary,  greater  perhajDS  than 
any  other  minister  of  the  Presbyterian  Church.  He 
was  the  man  of  all  others  to  appeal  to  in  taking 
hold  of  the  "plan"  of  1870.  These  are  some  of 
the  general  considerations  and  motives  that  led 
him  to  propose  and  the  directors  of  the  Union 
Seminary  to  adopt  that  plan. 

2.  But  the  question  here  arises,  why  precisely  such  a 
plan,  differing  so  materially  from  that  recommended 
by  the  General  Assemblies  of  1869,  should  have  been 
proposed  ?  In  the  plan  recommended  by  the  General 
Assemblies,  it  will  be  noticed  no  mention  was  made  of 
a  veto  in  the  election  of  professors.  The  Old  School 
seminaries  might,  if  their  Boards  of  Direction  desired 
it,  be  transferred  from  Assembly  control  to  the  watch 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  23 

and  care  of  one  or  more  of  the  adjacent  Synods  ;  while 
the  New  School  seminaries  were  "  advised  "  to  intro- 
duce, as  far  as  might  be,  into  their  constitutions  the 
principle  of  Sy nodical  or  Assembly  supervision. 
Neither  of  these  recommendations  was  followed.  No 
Old  School  seminary  was  transferred  from  the  control 
of  the  General  Assembly  to  the  watch  and  care  of  one 
or  more  of  the  adjacent  Synods.  Nor  did  Union  Sem- 
inary introduce  into  its  "  constitution  "  the  principle  of 
Synodical  or  Assembly  supervision.  This  shows  what 
good  reason  Dr.  Musgrave  had  for  saying  that  the 
"  concurrent  declarations  "  lacked  entirely  the  binding 
force  or  quality  of  a  "  legal  compact,"  and  it  shows  also 
that  with  all  their  uncommon  ability  and  wisdom,  and 
after  years  of  deliberation,  the  Joint  Committee  had 
recommended  what  was  altogether  impracticable.  Be- 
tween the  great  ratification  meeting  at  Pittsburgh,  in 
November,  1869,  and  the  meeting  at  Philadelphia,  in 
May,  1870,  it  had  become  clear  that  Princeton,  to  say 
nothing  of  other  Old  School  seminaries,  could  not  be 
released  from  Assembly  control,  and  put  itself  under 
the  watch  and  care  of  one  or  more  of  the  adjacent 
Synods  without  imperilling  its  endowments.  In  this 
dilemma  Union  Seminary  was  urged  to  come  to  the 
help  of  Princeton,  nor  did  there  then  seem  to  be  any 
other  way  of  relief.  The  appeal  was  based  largely 
upon  a  strong  conviction,  common  to  the  wisest  and 
best  friends  of  both  seminaries,  that  the  election  of 
professors   by   the    General    Assembly    was    oi^en    to 


24  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

serious  objections,  and  would  be  open  to  graver  objec- 
tions in  the  future. 

At  the  founding  of  Princeton  in  1812  the  Presby- 
terian Church  was  a  small  body,  numerically  and  ter- 
ritorially, and  the  selection  of  theological  teachers 
could  very  joroperly  be  entrusted  to  the  knowledge  and 
discretion  of  its  General  Assembly.  The  choice  of  the 
first  professors  of  Princeton  —  those  very  admirable 
types  of  Presbyterian  piety,  wisdom  and  learning, 
Samuel  Miller  and  Archibald  Alexander  —  was  doubt- 
less the  best  possible.  But  in  1870  the  Presbyterian 
Church  had  increased  enormously  both  in  numbers 
and  extent ;  it  covered  the  continent ;  and  its  branches 
reached  to  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth.  Even 
then  in  exceptional  cases  perhaps  the  General  Assem- 
bly could  judge  as  well  as  any  Board  of  Directors,  who 
was  best  qualified  for  this  or  that  chair  of  instruction, 
but  only  in  exceptional  cases.  As  a  rule,  the  General 
Assembly  was  every  year  becoming  less  fitted  to  exer- 
cise this  difiicult  function. 

The  point  is  thus  referred  to  in  a  letter  of  Dr.  A.  A. 
Hodge,  written  late  in  1867  : 

It  is  proper,  it  is  ahiiost  a  necessity,  that  each  institution 
should  be  left  in  the  management  of  those  upon  whose  sup- 
port it  exclusively  depends.  The  majority  of  any  Assembly 
must  be  necessarily  ignorant  of  the  special  wants  and  local 
conditions  of  any  seminary,  and  of  the  qualifications  of  can- 
didates proposed  for  its  chairs  of  instruction.  The  best  of 
these  are  generally  young  men,  up  to  the  time  of  their  nom- 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  25 

illation  known  only  to  a  few.  To  vest  the  choice  in  the 
General  Assembly  will  tend  to  put  prominent  ecclesiastics 
into  such  positions,  rather  than  scholars,  or  men  specially 
qualified  with  gifts  for  teaching.  As  the  population  of  our 
country  becomes  larger  and  more  heterogeneous,  and  the 
General  Assembly  increases  proportionably,  the  difficulties 
above  mentioned,  and  many  others  easily  thought  of,  will 
increase. 

Dr.  Henry  B.  Smith,  to  whom  this  letter  was  ad- 
dressed, thus  expressed  his  own  view  in  noticing  some 
of  the  objections  to  the  Joint  Committee's  report  of 
1867  : 

The  plan  allows  those  seminaries  that  are  now  under  the 
Assembly  to  remain  so,  or  if  tliey  choose,  to  put  themselves 
instead  under  Synodical  supervision;  and  it  recommends  the 
seminaries  not  under  ecclesiastical  supervision  to  attain  unto 
that  condition ;  hut  does  not  insist  on  this,  as  of  course,  it 
could  not.  .  .  .  It  is  a  fair  and  serious  question  whether 
a  General  Assembly,  representing  the  Presbyterian  Church 
throughout  the  whole  United  States,  especially  in  view  of  the 
numbers  in  that  Church,  and  the  extent  of  the  territory  in 
twenty  or  thirty  years,  will  be  the  best,  or  even  a  suitable 
body,  to  choose  the  professors  and  manage  the  concerns  of 
all  the  Presbyterian  seminaries  scattered  throughout  the 
country.  We  very  much  doubt  whether  this  would  be  a 
wise  arrangement.  It  may  work  well  in  Scotland,  but  Scot- 
land has  its  limits.  It  might  bring  into  the  Assembly  local, 
personal  and  theological  questions,  which  it  would  be  better 
to  settle  in  a  narrower  field. 

The  following  strong  expression  of  opinion,  written 
by    Dr.    Adams,    is  from   the  memorial  itself  of  the 


26  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

directors  of  Union  Theological  Seminary  to  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly : 

It  has  appeared  to  many,  and  especially  to  those  who 
took  an  active  part  in  founding  the  Union  Theological  Sem- 
inary, that  there  are  many  disadvantages,  infelicities,  not  to 
say  at  times  perils,  in  the  election  of  professors  of  the  theo- 
logical seminaries  directly  and  immediately  by  the  General 
Assembly  itself, — a  body  so  large,  in  session  for  so  short  a 
time,  and  composed  of  members  to  so  great  an  extent  resi- 
dent at  a  distance  from  the  seminaries  themselves,  and  there- 
fore personally  unacquainted  with  many  things  which  pertain 
to  their  true  interests  and  usefulness. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  in  the  memorial  of  the  direc- 
tors of  Union  Seminary,  offering  a  veto  in  the  election 
of  its  professors,  two  reasons  only  are  assigned,  namely : 
first,  a  desire,  as  was  said  before,  of  doing  all  in  their 
power  to  establish  confidence  and  harmony  throughout 
the  whole  Church  ;  and,  in  the  second  place,  a  desire  to 
secure  to  the  Old  School  seminaries,  in  which  those  of 
the  New  School  were  henceforth  to  have  a  common 
interest,  the  privilege,  so  highly  prized  by  themselves, 
of  choosing  j^rofessors  in  each  institution  by  its  own 
Board  of  Directors,  instead  of  having  them  chosen  in 
every  case  by  the  General  Assembly.  On  these  two 
grounds  the  memorial  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of 
Union  Seminary  was  chiefly  based.  These  two  consid- 
erations the  friends  of  Princeton  appealed  to  with  great 
force,  when  urging  Dr.  Adams  to  give  them  aid  in 
their  dilemma.     For  nothing  is  more  certain  than  that 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  27 

the  2)lan  presented  to  the  Union  board  on  the  9th  and 
16th  of  May,  1870,  was  first  suggested  to  Dr.  Adams 
by  his  Princeton  friends.  Had  that  way  of  solving 
the  problem  of  the  theological  seminaries  originated 
with  Dr.  Adams,  he  would  certainly  have  proposed  it 
during  the  troublesome  negotiations  on  this  subject, 
which  ran  on  for  nearly  three  years  prior  to  the 
reunion.  There  is  no  intimation  that  he  ever  did  any- 
thing of  the  sort.  And  yet  the  point  had  been  made 
again  and  again  by  Old  School  opponents  of  the  terms 
of  reunion,  as  jDroposed  by  the  Joint  Committee  in 
their  report  to  the  Assembles  in  1867,  that  the  semina- 
ries of  both  branches  of  the  Church  ought  in  fairness, 
to  be  placed  on  a  footing  of  "  perfect  equality."  Why, 
it  was  said,  should  the  Old  School  institutions  continue 
to  be  subject  to  the  full  control  of  the  General  Assem- 
bly, the  New  School  coming  in  for  an  equal  share  in 
its  exercise,  while  two  at  least  of  the  New  School  insti- 
tutions continued  under  what  Dr.  A.  A.  Hodge  in  a 
letter  to  Professor  Smith,  called  "  self-perpetuated  and 
irresponsible  Boards  of  Trustees."  Such  was  the 
reasoning  of  opponents  of  the  Joint  Committee's  report 
of  1867.  Indeed  so  sti'ong  was  the  feeling  and  con- 
tention of  not  a  few  of  them  with  regard  to  this  j^oint ; 
so  confident  were  they  of  the  superior  advantages  of 
subjection  to  ecclesiastical  control,  more  especially  the 
control  of  the  General  Assembly,  over  any  possible 
advantages  of  subjection  to  a  Board  of  Directors  or 
Trustees ;  and  so  persistent  were  they  in  asserting  this 


28  THE   UNION  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

view  that  their  opponents  could  scarcely  help  being 
reminded  of  the  fable,  so  dear  to  children,  entitled 
"The  Fox  AVithout  a  Tail."  The  fox,  it  will  be 
remembered,  was  caught  in  a  trap  by  his  tail,  and  in 
order  to  get  away  was  forced  to  leave  it  behind  ;  where- 
upon he  resolved  to  try  to  induce  his  fellows  to  part 
with  theirs ;  or,  as  Henry  B.  Smith  expressed  it,  in 
his  characteristic  way,  "to  attain  unto  that  condition."* 
Had  this  mode  of  solving  the  question  of  the  theo- 
logical seminaries  occurred  to  his  own  mind  as  the 
best.  Dr.  Adams,  I  repeat,  would  have  brought  it 
before  the  Joint  Committee  during  the  two  or  more 
years  that  committee  was  in  existence.  But  there  is 
no  evidence  that  it  was  even  mentioned.  Neither  the 
word  "  veto,"  nor  the  thing  itself,  apj)ears  in  the  report 
of  the  Joint  Committee  made  in  1867,  nor  in  that  of 
1868,  nor  in  the  report  of  the  Committee  of  Conference 
in  1869.  The  veto  first  appears  in  the  plan  presented 
to  the  Board  of  Directors  of  Union  Seminary  at  the 
meeting  on  May  9,  1870.  That  j^lan  offered  to  the 
General  Assembly  a  veto  in  the  election  of  both  direc- 
tors and  jDrofessors.  At  an  adjourned  meeting  of  the 
same  board,  held  on  May  16,  it  reappeared  as  a  veto  in 
the  election  of  professors.     Why  this  abandonment  of 

*  So  at  the  next  assembly  of  foxes  he  made  a  speech  on  the  unprofitable- 
ness of  tails  in  general,  and  the  inconvenience  of  a  fox's  tail  in  particular, 
adding  that  he  had  never  felt  so  easy  as  since  he  had  given  up  his  own. 
When  lie  sat  down  a  sly  old  fellow  arose,  and  waving  his  long  brush  with  a 
graceful  air,  said  with  a  sneer,  that  if,  like  the  last  speaker,  he  had  lost  his 
tail,  nothing  further  would  have  been  needed  to  convince  him;  but  till  such 
an  accident  should  happen,  he  sliotdd  certainly  vote  in  favor  of  tails. — An- 
cient Fables. 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  29 

the  scheme  recommended  by  article  ninth  of  the  report 
of  the  Joint  Committee  and  by  the  General  Assemblies 
of  1869  ?  And  why  the  sudden  abandonment  of  the 
method  proposed  to  the  Board  of  Directors  of  Union 
Seminary  on  May  9th,  and  the  substitution  in  its  place, 
on  May  16th,  of  still  another  method?  The  whole 
thing  is  curious  and  suggestive  in  a  high  degree. 
Consider  that  the  adjourned  meeting  of  the  board 
occurred  on  Monday  afternoon,  May  16th,  and  that 
the  General  Assembly  was  to  meet  in  Philadelphia  on 
the  ensuing  Thursday,  May  19th.  No  time,  therefore, 
was  to  be  lost.  It  was  too  late,  however,  to  give  to  the 
public  intimations  of  the  plan  of  May  16th.  The 
Evangelist,  one  of  whose  editors  at  that  time  was  a 
prominent  minister  of  the  late  Old  School,  contained  a 
carefully  written  editorial,  outlining  the  General 
Assembly's  work.  It  was  without  doubt  from  his  pen. 
In  the  course  of  this  article  is  the  following  significant 
paragraph : 

It  is  very  desirable  that  the  several  theological  seminaries 
connected  with  the  Church  be  brought  into  the  same  or 
similar  relations  to  the  Assembly.  The  scheme  proposed  by 
the  Princeton  Bevieiv,  April  number,  has  met  with  much 
favor.  Let  it  be  understood  that  the  boards  of  the  respec- 
tive seminaries  shall  be  allowed  to  fill  the  vacancies  in  their 
own  number,  as  that  scheme  contemplates ;  and  to  appoint 
the  incumbents  of  the  several  chairs,  subject  in  each  case  to 
the  approval  of  the  next  General  Assembly ;  and,  it  is 
thought,  the  seminaries  of  both  branches  will  cheerfully  come 


30  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

upon   this  platform.      Princeton    and    Union   are   understood 
to  be  prepared  for  it  and  to  desire  it. 

The  article  referred  to  in  the  Princeton  Review  for 
Aj^ril,  1870,  was  doubtless  written  by  Dr.  Charles 
Hodge,  the  founder  and  then  senior  editor  of  the 
Review.     The  scheme  was  as  follows  : 

Let  tiie  Assembly  confide  the  supervision  and  control  of 
the  seminaries  now  under  its  control  to  their  respective 
Boards  of  Direction,  as  now,  with  simply  these  alterations : 
1.  That  these  boards  shall  nominate  persons  to  fill  their  own 
vacancies  to  the  Assembly  for  confirmation.  2.  That  they 
shall  arrange  the  professorships,  and  appoint  the  professors, 
subject  to  ratification  by  the  Assembly.  This  Avould  suffice 
for  unification,  so  far  as  seminaries  heretofore  of  the  Old 
School  branch  are  concerned. 

It  seems  to  us  that  it  cannot  be  difficult  for  the  semina- 
ries of  the  other  branch  to  reach  substantially  the  same 
platform.  They,  of  course,  can  report  annually  to  the 
Assemblies  [Assembly] .  Without  knowing  all  the  details  of 
their  present  charters,  we  presume  there  is  no  insuperable 
obstacle  to  their  making  the  simple  by-law  that  all  their 
elections  to  fill  vacancies  in  the  board  or  boards  of  oversight 
and  direction,  also  of  professors,  shall  be  submitted  to  the 
Assembly  for  approval  before  they  are  finally  ratified.  If 
the  charters  now  forbid  such  an  arrangement  doubtless  alter- 
ations could  easily  be  obtained,  which  would  admit  of  it,  or 
something  equivalent,    [pp.  311,  312.] 

On  the  26tli  of  April,  1870,  at  the  annual  meeting 
of  the  directors  of  Princeton  Theological  Seminary, 
the  following  paper  was  jn-esented  to  the  board : 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  31 

In  the  negotiations  leading  to  the  union  of  the  two 
branches  of  onr  Church  it  was  unanimously  agreed  upon  by 
the  Joint  Committee  that  as  the  theological  seminaries  con- 
nected  with  the  New  School  were  either  independent  or 
under  Synodical  control,  any  seminary  under  the  General 
Assembly  of  the  Old  School  might,  at  the  discretion  of  its 
Board  of  Directors,  be  freed  from  the  direct  control  of  the 
Assembly  of  the  united  Church.  This  was  regarded  as  due 
to  fairness  and  courtesy. 

As,  however,  the  endowments  of  this  seminary  are  held 
on  condition  that  it  shall  be  subject  to  the  General  Assem- 
bly of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  it  can  neither  be  rendered 
independent  nor  placed  under  the  control  of  one  or  more 
Synods.  The  professors  would,  therefore,  respectfully  suggest 
to  the  Board  of  Directors,  with  a  view  of  accomplishing  the 
object  contemplated  by  the  Joint  Committee,  that  the  board 
should  request  the  General  Assembly  so  to  alter  the  plan  of 
the  seminary  that  the  directors  shall  hereafter  have  the  right 
to  appoint  and  to  remove  the  professors,  subject  to  the  veto 
of  the  General  Assembly ;  and  also  the  right  to  supply  their 
own  vacancies,  subject  to  a  like  veto.  This  would  leave  the 
institution  subject  to  the  control  of  the  Assembly,  as  no  man 
could  have  a  place  either  in  the  faculty  or  in  the  board,  of 
whom  the  Assembly  did  not  approve. 

The  suggestion  of  the  professors  was  adopted  and 
their  paper  sent  up  to  the  General  Assembly,  un- 
altered, as  a  memorial  from  the  Princeton  directors. 

On  May  16th,  1870,  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the 
Union  Theological  Seminary  adopted  the  following  me- 
morial to  the  General  Assembly  of  the  reunited  Church, 
which  was  to  meet  in  Philadelphia  three  days  later. 


32  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

Whereas,  In  the  recent  negotiations  for  reuniting  the 
two  branches  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  great  importance 
Avas  attached  to  some  uniform  system  of  ecclesiastical  super- 
vision over  the  several  theological  seminaries  of  the  denom- 
ination ;    and, 

Wheeeas,  The  directors  of  the  Union  Theological  Semi- 
nary in  New  York,  an  institution  founded  before  the 
disruption  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  belonging  exclusively 
to  neither  of  its  branches,  and  administered  upon  its  own 
independent  charter,  are  desirous  of  doing  all  in  their  power 
to  establish  confidence  and  harmony  throughout  the  whole 
Church,  in  respect  to  the  education  of  its  ministers ;    and, 

Whereas,  It  has  appeared  to  many,  and  especially  to 
those  who  took  an  active  part  in  founding  the  Union  Theo- 
logical Seminary,  that  there  are  many  disadvantages,  infelici- 
ties, not  to  say  at  times  perils,  in  the  election  of  professors 
of  these  seminaries  directly  and  immediately  by  the  General 
Assembly  itself — a  body  so  large,  in  session  for  so  short  a 
time,  and  composed  of  members  to  so  great  an  extent  resi- 
dent at  a  distance  from  the  seminaries  themselves,  and 
therefore  personally  unacquainted  with  many  things  which 
pertain  to  their  true  interest  and  usefulness;  therefore  be  it 

Resolved,  That  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  Union 
Theological  Seminary,  in  the  city  of  New  York,  being  all 
of  them  ministers  or  members  of  the  Presbyterian  Church, 
do  hereby  memorialize  the  General  Assembly  to  the  follow- 
ing effect,  viz  :  That  the  General  Assembly  may  be  pleased 
to  adopt  it  as  a  rule  and  plan,  in  the  exercise  of  the  pro- 
prietorship and  control  oyer  the  several  theological  semi- 
naries, that  so  far  as  the  election  of  professors  is  concerned 
the  Assembly  will  commit  the  same  to  their  respective  Boards 
of  Directors,  on  the  following  terms  ar.d  conditions  : 

1.     That   the    Boards    of   Directors    of  each     theological 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  33 

seminary  shall  be  authorized  to  appoint  all  professors  of  the 
same. 

2.  That  all  such  appointments  shall  be  reported  to  the 
General  Assembly,  and  no  such  appointment  shall  be  consid- 
ered as  a  complete  election  if  disapproved  by  a  majority 
vote  of  the  Assembly, 

And  further  be  it  Resolved,  That  the  Board  of  Directors 
of  the  Union  Theological  Seminary,  in  the  city  of  New 
York,  persuaded  that  the  plan  proposed  in  the  memorial 
will  meet  the  cordial  approval  of  the  patrons,  donors  and 
friends  of  all  these  seminaries,  and  contribute  to  the  peace 
and  prosperity  of  the  Church,  do  hereby  agree,  if  the  said 
plan  shall  be  adopted  by  the  General  Assembly,  that  they 
will  agree  to  conform  to  the  same,  the  Union  Seminary  in 
New  York  being  in  this  respect  on  the  same  ground  with 
other  theological  seminaries  of  the  Presbyterian  Church. 

At  the  opening,  then,  of  the  first  General  Assembly 
of  the  reunited  Church,  on  May  19,  1870,  the  case 
stood  thus :  Princeton  objected  to  the  "recommenda- 
tion" of  the  Assemblies  of  1869  as  unwise,  and  could 
not  follow  it  without  imperilling  a  portion  of  her  en- 
dowments. Union,  warned  in  time,  refused  to  adopt 
the  Princeton  "scheme"  with  regard  to  directors,  but 
accepted  it  in  a  greatly  modified  form  with  regard  to 
p)rofessors,  while  both  had  memorialized  the  General 
Assembly.  This  posture  of  things  w^as  a  logical, 
not  to  say  necessary,  outcome  of  the  whole  situation. 
It  followed  inevitably  that  Princeton  should  look  for- 
ward w^ith  special  solicitude  to  the  possible  action  of 
the   Assembly    at    Philadelphia,   touching   theological 


34  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

seminaries.  Some  of  her  dearest  interests  were,  as  she 
believed,  involved  in  the  issue.  It  would  have  been 
strange,  indeed,  had  she  not  regarded  with  a  certain 
misgiving  the  part  which  the  new  co-partners  might 
take  in  shaping  that  issue.  And  then  she  was  tempted 
to  overestimate  the  imj)ortance  of  a  "  uniform  system  " 
in  dealing  with  the  theological  seminaries,  and  to  be 
too  solicitous  of  having  them  all  even  as  she  herself 
was.  The  temptation  of  Union,  on  the  other  hand, 
was  to  yield  too  readily  to  the  magnanimous  impulses 
of  the  hour,  and  so  allow  her  cooler  judgment  to  be 
overpowered  by  the  surging  tide  of  reunion  enthusiasm. 
Pope  Innocent  XII  wrote  to  the  French  prelates, 
who  had  procured  the  famous  brief  condemning  Fene- 
lon  :  "  He  erred  by  loving  God  too  much."  "  Pecca- 
vit  excessu  amoris  divini ;"  so  one  might  say  of  Dr. 
Adams,  that  he  erred,  if  at  all,  in  too  exclusive  devo- 
tion to  the  peace  and  harmony  of  the  reunited  Church  ; 
and  the  same  might  be  said  of  most  of  his  associates  in 
the  directory  of  Union  Seminary.  But  on  one  point 
Union  and  Princeton  were  in  perfect  accord.  Both 
regarded  it  as  exceedingly  desirable  that  theological 
professors  should  no  longer  be  elected  by  the  General 
Assembly ;  Princeton  primarily  on  her  own  account ; 
Union,  on  account  of  Princeton,  as  also  of  the  other 
Old  School  seminaries.  It  is  fair  to  add  that  some  of 
the  strongest  friends  of  Princeton  Avere,  no  doubt^ 
influenced  by  another  reason  for  wishing  to  be  liber- 
ated from  further  subjection  to  the  General  Assembly 


ANOTHER   DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  35 

in  the  election  of  its  professors,  namely  :  distrust  of 
the  doctrinal  soundness  of  the  late  New  School  Church. 
Dr.  Charles  Hodge  led  a  whole  company  of  eminent 
Old  School  men,  who  to  the  last  protested  and  fought 
against  reunion  largely  on  this  ground.  To  some  of 
these,  especially  to  Dr.  Hodge  himself.  Dr.  Beatty 
refers  in  a  striking  letter  printed  in  The  Evangelist  of 
August  6,  1891  :  "  Dr.  Adams  knew  what  great  diffi- 
culties and  conflicts  of  inind  I  had  from  the  fact  that 
my  best  friends  were  in  opposition  to  my  views ;  and  I 
made  the  request  of  him  that  after  my  death  he  would 
state  these  things  in  some  article  in  The  Evangelist ^ 
Did  the  simple  fact  of  reunion  at  once  change  their 
honest  convictions  on  this  subject?  Not  at  all.  And, 
therefore,  the  sudden  accession  of  the  New  School 
branch  to  equal  power  in  the  General  Assembly, 
bringing  what  were  regarded  their  "  loose  "  notions  of 
subscription  and  all  their  other  objectionable  views 
with  them,  intensified  the  desire  to  take  the  election  of 
Princeton  professors  out  of  that  body. 

And  it  is  only  right  to  add  further,  that  in  voting, 
as  they  all  did,  in  favor  of  remitting  the  election  of 
professors  in  the  Old  School  seminaries  to  their  sev- 
eral Boards  of  Direction,  the  commissioners  who  be- 
longed to  the  late  New  School  branch  were  voting  to 
dispossess  themselves  at  once  of  a  power  in  the  control 
of  those  seminaries,  which  reunion  had  fairly  put  into 
their  hands.  It  was  the  proper  thing  for  them  to  do  ; 
but  it  was  also  a  handsome  thing  to  do  so  promptly  and 


36  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

SO  heartily.  On  the  basis  then,  of  a  common  senti- 
ment respecting  the  election  of  theological  professors, 
both  Union  and  Princeton  memorialized  the  General 
Assembly  ;  and  through  their  joint  influence,  the  plan 
first  suggested  by  Princeton  and  proposed  by  Union, 
was  unanimously  adoj)ted. 

I  have  thus  stated  some  of  the  principal  reasons  and 
influences  that  in  1870  induced  Union  Seminary  to 
concede  to  the  General  Asseinbly  a  portion  of  its 
autonomy.  Let  us  now  go  back  and  consider  the  mat- 
ter a  little  more  in  detail. 

(/)  Action  and  purpose  of  the  Board  of  Directors  in 
making  this  concession. 

The  subject  was  first  brought  before  the  board  by 
Dr.  Adams  at  a  meeting  held  on  May  9,  1870.  Among 
the  directors  present,  were  Edwin  F.  Hatfield  and 
Jonathan  F.  Stearns,  who  with  Dr.  Adams  had  been 
members  of  the  Joint  Committee  on  Reunion  ;  Joseph 
S.  Gallagher,  James  Patriot  Wilson,  Charles  Butler, 
Norman  White,  Fisher  Howe,  William  A.  Booth,  D. 
Willis  James  and  John  Crosby  Brown.  These  names 
speak  for  themselves  and  need  no  glossary.  They  rej)- 
resent  moral  strength,  sound  judgment,  large  and 
varied  experience,  world-wide  influence,  intelligent 
piety,  and  all  the  other  qualities  that  go  to  make  up 
solid  weight  of  character.  To  most  of  the  directors  the 
plan  proposed  for  their  adoption  was  wholly  new. 
They  had  never  before  heard  of  it  unless  as  suggested 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  37 

in  the  April  number  of  Dr.  Hodge's  Review.  But  as 
coming  from  Dr.  Adams,  as  offered  in  the  interest  of 
the  unity  and  harmony  of  the  Presbyterian  Church, 
and  also  in  response  to  urgent  persuasions  from  the  old 
and  honored  seminary  at  Princeton,  it  won  their  con- 
sent, if  not  their  entire  approval.  So  far  as  its  weak 
points  were  concerned,  it  took  them  at  a  serious  disad- 
vantage. They  had  no  time  for  reflection.  And  so, 
while  there  was  considerable  discussion,  with  a  single 
notable  exception,  none  refused  to  support  the  scheme. 
Several  of  the  professors  were  present,  but  they  raised 
no  objection.  The  record  would  probably  be  different 
had  Henry  B.  Smith  been  among  them.  The  plan  of 
putting  the  institution  under  ecclesiastical  control  never 
pleased  him.  He  considered  the  generous  and  self- 
governing  liberty,  which  was  its  birthright,  a  blessing 
too  great  to  be  parted  with  at  any  price.  He  distrusted 
also  a  certain  tendency  and  tem^^er,  or  rather,  as  he 
viewed  it,  distemper,  Avliich  again  and  again  in  the  last 
century  and  in  our  own  had  troubled  the  peace  and 
hampered  the  free  development  of  American  Presby- 
terianism.  In  1837,  at  the  age  of  twenty-one,  he  had 
been  a  watchful  eye  wdtness  of  the  turbulent  scenes  at 
Philadelphia,  when  the  four  Synods  were  cut  off  and 
the  great  disruption  was  inaugurated.  From  that  time 
he  was  a  keen  observer  of  all  that  went  on  in  the  two 
branches  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  and  before  com- 
ing to  New  York,  thirteen  years  later,  he  had  formed 
opinions  on  the  subject  which  remained  essentially  un- 


38  THE   UNION  THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

changed  to  the  day  of  his  deatli.     In  a  letter  to  me, 
dated  Amherst,  September  17,  1850,  he  wrote: 

I  go  to  New  York  in  full  view  of  the  uncertainties  and 
difficulties  of  the  position.  .  .  .It  [the  seminary] 
stands  somewhere  between  Andover  and  Princeton,  just  as 
New  School  Presbyterianism  stands  between  Congregational- 
ism and  the  consistent  domineering  Presbyterianism,  and 
will  be  pressed  on  all  sides.  Whether  it  is  to  be  resolved 
into  these  two,  or  to  be  consolidated  on  its  own  ground,  is 
still  a  problem.  ...  I  am  going  to  New  York  to 
work — to  work,  I  trust,  for  my  Master. 

This  "  consistent  domineering  "  element,  so  far  as  it 
prevailed  in  Presbyterianism,  whether  in  the  theolog- 
ical or  the  ecclesiastical  sphere,  he  regarded  with  strong- 
dislike.  Had  he  been  present,  therefore,  at  the  meet- 
ing of  the  board,  on  May  9,  1870,  I  believe  he  would 
have  stood  where  D.  Willis  James  so  firmly  stood  with 
respect  to  the  plan  of  conceding  to  the  General  Assem- 
bly so  vital  a  part  of  the  seminary's  chartered  rights 
and  autonomy  as  the  last  decisive  word  in  the  election 
of  its  own  directors  and  jDrofessors.  And  Henry  B. 
Smith  was  probably  the  only  man  whose  voice  at  that 
time,  on  any  matter  touching  the  theological  seminaries, 
would  have  been  equally  potential  with  that  of  William 
Adams.  But  unfortunately,  early  in  the  previous  year, 
just  as  reunion  was  about  to  triumph,  Professor  Smith, 
utterly  broken  down  in  the  service  of  Union  Seminary 
and  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  had  fled  for  his  life 
beyond  the  sea,  and  he  was  still  abroad. 


/ 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OE  ITS  HISTORY.  39 

I  have  intimated  that  a  single  director  only,  D. 
Willis  James,  raised  his  voice  against  the  plan  pro- 
posed by  Dr.  Adams.  Mr.  James  is  a  grandson  of 
Anson  G.  Phelps,  and  thus  is  identified  with  the  history 
of  the  seminary  by  his  close  kinship  to  three  genera- 
tions of  its  benefactors,  as  well  as  by  his  own  long 
service  and  munificent  gifts.  At  the  memorable  meet- 
ing of  the  Board  of  Directors  of  Union  Seminary,  held 
on  June  5,  1891,  Mr.  James  made  the  following  highly 
important  statement : 

I  feel  it  due  to  the  Board  of  Directors  to  give  to  them 
a  statement  of  what  occurred  at  the  meeting  of  the  directors 
held  on  the  9th  of  May,  1870,  when  the  matter  of  the  con- 
nection of  the  seminary  with  the  General  Assembly  of  the 
Presbyterian  Church  was  first  considered.  That  meeting, 
from  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  and  all  that  occurred 
there  at  that  time,  is  most  clearly  and  indelibly  impressed 
upon  my  memory. 

Dr.  Adams  proposed  that  the  Union  Theological  Semi- 
nary should  give  to  the  General  Assembly  a  veto  power 
over  the  appointment  of  the  directors  and  professors  of  the 
seminary,  assigning  as  the  reason,  in  much  detail,  that  it 
would  be  a  great  aid  to  the  other  seminaries  of  the  Church, 
whose  professors  were  appointed  by  the  action  of  the  Gen- 
eral Asssembly  and  not  by  the  Board  of  Directors.  He 
also  stated  that  experience  had  shown  that  the  professors 
thus  appointed  by  the  General  Assembly  were  frequently  not 
such  as  proved  to  be  the  best   men  for  the  several  positions. 

I  strenuously  objected  to  giving  the  veto  power  in  the 
appointment  of  the  directors  to  the  General  Assembly,  on  the 
ground    that    it    was   practically  placing    the    control    of  the 


40  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

property  and  all  the  interests  of  the  Union  Theological  Sem- 
inary in  the  hands  of  the  General  Assembly,  and  that  such 
action  was  fraught  with  great  danger. 

A  general  discussion  occurred,  participated  in  by  most  of 
the  directors,  and  I  spoke  a  second  time  on  the  subject, 
calling  attention  most  earnestly  to  the  great  danger,  as  it 
seemed  to  me,  of  any  such  action  by  which  the  large  prop- 
erty of  the  seminary,  and  all  its  interests,  would  be  prac- 
tically turned  over  to  the  control  of  the  General  Assembly. 

But  when  it  seemed  evident  that  a  vote  would  be  taken 
and  that  the  resolution  would  be  passed  by  the  Board  of 
Directors,  I  arose  for  the  third  time,  feeling  very  strongly 
the  importance  of  the  matter  under  consideration,  and  said, 
in  substance,  that  I  should  request,  when  the  vote  was 
taken,  that  it  should  be  by  ayes  and  nays,  so  that  my  vote 
could  be  recorded  in  the  negative,  and  that  I  should  also 
request  that  my  most  earnest  and  solemn  protest  be  entered 
in  full  in  the  minutes,  to  the  end  that  when  the  disaster 
came,  as  it  certainly  would  from  this  action — perhaps  after 
all  those  who  were  taking  part  in  the  discussion  at  that  time 
had  passed  away — the  seminary  could  then  have  the  benefit 
of  this  protest  and  whatever  legal  advantages  might  come 
from  such  protest.  I  said  that  I  did  not  desire  to  make 
factious  opposition,  but  that  I  felt  that  the  interests  of  the 
seminary  were  being  jeopardized  and  that  a  great  injury  was 
being  done  to  its  future. 

"When  I  sat  down  Dr.  Prentiss  rose  and  said,  substan- 
tially, that  he  would  surprise  the  mover  of  the  resolution  by 
the  action  he  was  about  to  take,  but  that  ho  had  become 
impressed  with  the  fact  that  it  was  wise  to  take  further  time 
for  consideration,  and  would  move  a  postponement  of  the 
matter  for  that  purpose.  This  motion  led  to  the  postpone- 
ment of  the  vote. 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  41 

Prior  to  the  adjourned  meeting  of  May  16,  1870,  I  liad 
an  interview  with  Dr.  Adams,  and  expressed  to  him  my 
sincere  regret  tliat  I  had  been  compelled  to  differ  M'itli  him 
and  other  members  of  the  board,  but  he  then  tendered  to 
me  his  thanks  for  my  having  taken  the  course  I  did,  and 
said  he  felt  that  it  was  wiser  not  to  have  passed  the  resolu- 
tion he  first  proposed. 

He  then  suggested,  in  the  interest  of  the  other  seminaries 
then  controlled  by  the  General  Assembly,  the  motion  which 
Avas  presented  and  adopted  on  the  16th  of  May,  1870,  viz  : 
That  the  veto  power  in  the  appointment  of  the  professors 
should  be  given  to  the  General  Assembly,  and  this  solely  in 
the  interest  of  other  seminaries  which  would  be  benefited  by 
this  action  of  the  Union  Theological  Seminary.  I  expressed 
to  him  then  the  view  that  I  held,  that  even  this  action, 
though  much  better  than  placing  the  control  of  the  property 
in  the  hands  of  the  General  Assembly,  was  still  a  very 
serious  mistake,  and  calculated  to  produce  great  and  unfor- 
tunate mischief. 

I  said,  however,  that  if  he  and  other  directors  felt  that 
this  was  the  wisest  course,  and  as  they  had  yielded  the 
matter  of  the  veto  power  over  the  appointment  of  directors, 
Avhile  I  would  not  vote  in  favor  of  the  resolution,  I  would 
not  go  on  record  against  it ;  and,  as  a  result,  the  resolution 
was  passed  on  the  16th  of  May,  1870,  giving  to  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly  only  a  veto  over  the  appointment  of  pro- 
fessors and  nothing  more. 

{g)  Did  the  directors  of  Union  Seminary  suppose 
that  in  their  action  on  May  16,  1870,  they  were  offering 
to  enter  into  a  legal  compact  with  the  General  Assembly  ? 

When  in  1891  the  question  first  arose,  it  was  assumed 


42  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

by  many,  and  strenuously  argued  by  others,  that  this 
was  their  understanding  of  the  matter ;  at  all  events, 
that  such  was  the  real  quality  and  effect  of  their  action. 
And  on  the  ground  of  its  possessing  this  character,  the 
public  was  treated  to  somewhat  elaborate  definitions 
and  exj^ositions  of  the  nature  and  binding  force  of  a 
contract,  the  extent  and  limitations  of  ultra  vires,  and 
I  know  not  how  many  other  lessons  in  legal  lore.  And 
yet,  according  to  the  best  of  my  own  recollection,  as  a 
member  of  the  board,  and  of  my  belief  concerning  all 
the  other  members  present,  not  a  single  director  sup- 
posed the  board  was  entering  into  any  such  comjDact. 
Three  directors  who  were  present  on  May  9th  and  also 
on  May  16th,  had  been  members  of  the  Joint  Com- 
mittee on  Reunion,  as  I  have  said  before  :  one  of  them, 
Jonathan  F.  Stearns,  was  also  a  member  of  the  Joint 
Committee  of  Conference,  which  reported  the  final 
basis  and  plan  of  union  to  the  two  Assemblies  in  1869. 
He  aided  in  j^reparing  that  important  report,  voted  for 
it,  signed  it,  and  gave  it  his  hearty  approval.  And  it 
was  in  this  report  made  and  explained  to  the  Old 
School  Assembly  in  the  Brick  Church,  by  Dr.  jNIus- 
grave,  that  those  emphatic  sentences  relating  to  the 
articles  on  seminaries,  boards,  and  the  like  occur  :  "  We 
will  not  consent  to  make  these  articles  a  covenant :  we 
won't  adopt  them  as  a  legal  compact  binding  upon  the 
future.  This  paper  is  not  a  compact  or  covenant : 
but  it  is  a  recommendation  of  certain  arrangements  as 
to  seminaries,"  etc. 


ANOTHER  DECADE    OF  ITS  HISTORY.  43 

Dr.  Stearns  was  the  most  trusted  counsellor  of  Henry 
B.  Smith,  and  not  unlike  him  in  sagacity  and  fore- 
thought, as  also  in  devotion  to  Union  Seminary  and 
the  Presbyterian  Church.  To  Dr.  Stearns  more,  in 
my  opinion,  than  to  any  other  man,  did  Union  Semi- 
nary owe  the  coming  of  Henry  B.  Smith  to  New  York. 
The  New  School  branch  of  the  Church  especially  never 
knew  the  full  extent  of  her  indebtedness  to  him,  for  he 
was  as  modest  as  he  was  wise,  fearless  and  public- 
spirited.  Is  it  likely  that  such  a  man  would  have  sat 
quietly  and  given  his  vote  for  a  settlement  of  the  ques- 
tion of  the  theological  seminaries  in  a  way,  and  on  a 
principle,  and  with  an  understanding  contradicting  so 
utterly  the  report  which  a  few  months  before  he  had 
joined  in  framing  and  urging  upon  the  acceptance  of 
the  General  Assemblies  ?     The  thing  is  inconceivable. 

But  I  have  not  stated  this  aspect  of  the  case  in  its 
full  strength.  Dr.  Adams  himself  was  a  member  of  the 
Joint  Committee  of  Conference,  and  signed  the  report 
as  its  chairman.  He  also  presented  the  report  to  the 
New  School  Assembly  in  the  Church  of  the  Covenant, 
as  Dr.  Musgrave  did  at  the  same  time  to  the  Old  School 
Assembly  in  the  Brick  Cliurch.  He  explained  it  in  a 
careful  speech,  calling  attention  to  the  point  that  the 
articles  of  agreement  or  "  concurrent  declarations,"  were 
not  a  compact  or  contract,  but  recommendations  only  as 
to  what  might  be  suitable  and  expedient.  Is  it  at  all 
probable,  is  it  really  conceivable,  that  sucli  a  man  as 
Dr.  Adams,  only  a  few  months  later,  would  have  pro- 


44  '^HE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

posed  to  the  Board  of  Directors  of  Union  Seminary,  a 
l^lan  touching  the  whole  future  of  that  institution, 
which  involved  the  very  thing  so  distinctly  repudiated 
by  the  unanimous  vote  of  the  Joint  Committee  of  Con- 
ference, and  repudiated  too  by  both  Assemblies. 

The  i^lan  of  1870  was  an  expression  of  Christian 
confidence  and  good-will  on  the  part  of  the  directors 
of  Union  Seminary.  In  offering  to  give  up  so  much  of 
their  autonomy  as  was  involved  in  conceding  to  the 
General  Assembly  a  veto  in  the  election  of  its  profess- 
ors, they  were  not  thinking  of  a  legal  comj)act,  whereby 
the  seminary  would  gain  certain  positive  advantages  in 
return,  they  were  thinking  simply  of  what  seemed  to 
them,  on  the  whole,  best  fitted  to  promote  the  harmony 
and  prosperity  of  the  united  Church,  and  the  true  in- 
terests of  all  the  other  theological  seminaries.  Their 
offer  was  in  its  very  essence,  as  the  General  Assembly 
a  few  days  after  characterized  it,  an  act  of"  generosity," 
or  as  Dr.  Musgrave  expressed  it,  in  1871,  an  act 
of  "  courtesy."  "  Courtesy  "  is  one  of  the  words  used 
also  by  the  Princeton  professors  in  their  memorial 
to  the  board  and  by  the  directors  in  their  memorial  to 
the  General  Assembly.  But  generosity  and  courtesy 
belong  to  a  line  of  thought  and  action  totally  distinct 
from  that  of  a  legal  compact  with  its  definite  obliga- 
tions, considerations  and  advantages.  Had  the  discus- 
sion in  the  Board  of  Directors  of  Union  Seminary 
moved  along  the  line  of  such  a  compact,  nothing  is 
more  certain  than  that  the  plan  of  agreement  would 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  45 

have  failed  utterly.  No  doubt  there  is  an  element  of 
agreement  in  a  legal  compact.  Every  such  compact  is 
an  agreement ;  but  there  are  many  sorts  of  agreement 
which  are  only  differing  forms  of  good  understanding, 
friendly  arrangements,  acts  of  generosity  or  courtesy, 
which  lose  their  most  essential  virtue  and  all  their 
beauty  the  moment  you  invest  them  with  the  rigidity 
and  binding  force  of  a  legal  contract.  The  discussion 
on  reunion,  and  especially  the  speech  of  Dr.  Musgrave 
before  the  Old  School  Assembly  —  heard,  probably,  by 
most  of  the  Union  directors  —  had  made  the  whole 
Presbyterian  Church  familiar  with  this  distinction. 
"  We  will  not  consent,"  said  Dr.  Musgrave,  referring 
to  the  recommendations  about  theological  seminaries, 
boards,  etc.,  "  we  will  not  consent  to  make  these  articles 
a  covenant.  We  won't  adopt  them  as  a  legal  compact, 
binding  upon  the  future :  Yet  we  are  acting  in  good 
faith  and  as  honorable  men,  and  we  say  to  you  that  we 
will  not  change  them  at  any  future  time  without  ob- 
viously good  and  sufficient  reasons."  Exactly  so  Avould 
the  directors  of  Union  Seminary  have  expressed  them- 
selves with  regard  to  their  generous  arrangement  with 
the  General  Assembly.  Such  words  as  "  compact " 
"  contract,"  "  covenant,"  are  carefully  avoided  in  the 
memorial  of  Union  Seminary  and  in  the  action  of  the 
General  Assembly  thereupon.  Not  one  of  them  can 
be  found  in  the  historical  record.  "  Plan,"  "  rule," 
"  agreement,"  "  method,"  or  the  like,  are  the  terms  used. 
It  was  intended,  just  as  the  ninth  article  in  the  report 


46  '^HE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

of  the  Joint  Committee  was  intended,  "  as  a  measure 
for  the  maintenance  of  confidence  and  harmony,  and 
not  as  indicating  the  best  method  for  all  future  time." 
(Moore's  Digest,  p.  384). 

All  that  the  article  in  the  Princeton  Review  for 
April,  1870,  written  by  Dr.  Charles  Hodge,  or  with 
his  approval,  ventured  to  suggest  to  the  New  School 
branch  was  "  making  the  simple  by-law  that  all  the 
elections  to  fill  vacancies  in  the  board  or  boards  of 
oversight  and  direction,  also  of  professors,  shall  be 
submitted  to  the  Assembly  for  approval  before  they 
are  finally  ratified."  Who  ever  heard  of  a  "  simple 
by-law"  that  could  not  be  suspended,  changed,  or  re- 
pealed by  the  power  that  made  it  ?  The  difference 
between  the  concessions  asked,  if  not  claimed,  of  the 
New  School  by  the  Old  School  opponents  of  the  fir§t 
plan  of  reunion,  as  reported  by  the  Joint  Committee  in 
1867,  and  the  concessions  hoped  for  just  before  the 
meeting  of  the  Assembly  in  1870,  as  stated  in  the 
above  article  of  the  Princeton  Review,  is  very  striking. 
It  is  the  difference  between  a  maximum  and  a  mini- 
mum. Perhaps  it  cannot  be  better  illustrated  than 
by  some  extracts  from  a  letter  of  Professor  A.  A. 
Hodge,  of  the  Alleghany  Seminary,  to  Dr.  Henry 
B.  Smith,  written  in  December,  1867.  The  italics  are 
his  own : 

Although  I  am  in  every  sense  unknown  to  you,  my 
knowk'dge  of  and  indebtedness  to  you  tlirougli  your  writings, 
and   especially  our   community  of  interest   in    the    subject  of 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OE  ITS  HISTORY.  47 

this  letter,  emboldens  me  to  intrude  it  upon  you,  and  to 
urge  your  deliberate  attention  to  it. 

Undoubtedly  one  of  the  chief  causes  of  uneasiness  on  the 
part  of  the  Old  School,  in  view  of  reunion  upon  the  terms 
proposed  by  the  Joint  Committee,  is  the  inequality  between 
the  positions  of  the  two  parties  in  respect  to  seminaries. 
This  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  serious  objection  is  made 
to  the  terms  proposed  in  respect  to  this  interest  by  a  far 
larger  number  of  Presbyteries  than  is  necessary  to  defeat  the 
whole  matter.  .  .  .  Now,  although  I  write  without  con- 
sultation with  or  the  knowledge  of  a  single  person,  I  feel 
certain  that  a  compromise  to  the  following  effect  would  be 
highly  gratifying  to  the  great  majority  of  those  most  nearly 
interested  in  seminaries  on  our  side,  and  further,  that  if 
proposed  from  your  side  it  would  be  almost  certainly  ac- 
cepted by  our  General  Assembly  as  a  condition  of  union. 

Suppose  then  the  matter  be  adjusted  on  the  following 
principles  : 

1.  ^4//  the  seminaries  of  both  parties  to  be,  as  a  condi- 
tion of  union,  brought  in  on  the  same  basis,  so  that  there 
may  be  perfect  equality. 

2.  That  you  on  your  side  admit  the  pi'inciple  of  direct 
ecclesiastical  control,  and  put  your  seminaries  each  under  the 
care  of  one  or  more  contiguous  Synods.  The  Synods  to 
elect  the  Boards  of  Directors,  the  Boards  of  Directors  to 
elect  the  professors.  The  General  Assemldy,  for  the  sake 
of  preserving  uniformity  of  doctrine  in  the  Church,  to  pos- 
sess the  right  of  peremptory  veto  in  the  case  of  the  election 
of  a  professor. 

3.  That  we  on  our  side  yield  the  principle  of  the  im- 
mediate control  of  the  seminaries  by  the  General  Assembly, 
and  put  each  of  our  seminaries  under  one  or  more  Synods  in 
the  manner  specified  above. 


48  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

Such  a  plan  might  have  some  legitimate  objections.  It 
would  certainly  meet  with  decided  opposition  from  some  of 
the  more  distant  portions  of  our  branch,  which  would  thereby 
be  dispossessed  of  powers  previously  enjoyed.  It  would  be 
obviously  unadvisable  for  such  a  proposition  to  be  publicly 
offered  by  any  of  our  professors.  Therefore,  I  shall  do  no 
more  than  make  this  suggestion  to  you.  ...  If  you 
agree  with  me  as  to  the  plan,  and  are  willing  to  present  it 
to  the  representatives  of  your  branch  in  the  Joint  Committee, 
I  have  much  hope  that  it  will  jjrevail. 

Professor  Smith,  regarding  the  scheme  so  strongly 
urged  in  this  letter  as  wholly  imjoracticable,  felt  un- 
willing to  recommend  it  to  the  New  School  representa- 
tives of  the  Joint  Committee. 

{h )  Scope  and  limitations  of  the  veto  in  the  elec- 
tion of  its  professors,  offered  to  the  General  Assembly  by 
the  directors  of  Union  Seminary  in  1870. 

Passing  from  the  question  of  the  nature  of  this  offer, 
let  us  consider  its  extent  and  its  limitations.  The 
language  used  is  very  exact  and  carefully  chosen.  It 
differs  materially  from  that  used  in  the  plan  presented 
to  the  board  on  May  9th.  Before  the  meeting  on  May 
16th  legal  counsel  had  unquestionably  been  taken. 
Nor  have  I  any  doubt  that  it  was  taken  of  one  of  Dr. 
Adams'  closest  friends  and  a  member  of  his  session, 
Theodore  A¥.  Dwight,  LL.D.,  the  eminent  jurist  and 
author.  In  nearly  all,  if  not  in  all,  the  proposals  and 
articles  on  the  subject,  ^v\ov  to  the  meeting  at  Pliila- 
deljihia,  positive  action  by  the  General  Assembly  was 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  49 

contemplated  as  requisite  to  a  complete  election ;  in 
other  words,  every  election  or  appointment,  in  order  to 
be  complete,  must  be  directly  approved,  or  else  disap- 
proved, by  the  General  Assembly.  This  would  be  in 
accordance  with  the  usual  practice  in  the  political 
sphere.  Ordinarily  the  veto  power  goes  along  with 
the  power  of  approval  and  confirmation.  It  is  so  with 
the  Presidential  veto.  It  is  so  generally  with  the  veto 
power  of  governors  and  mayors.  But  it  was  not  so 
here,  and  as  a  consequence,  even  the  General  Assembly 
itself,  as  we  shall  see,  required  twenty  years  fairly  to 
learn  the  lesson  of  the  extent  of  its  power  in  the  case. 
All  that  the  Assembly  could  rightfully  do,  under  the 
agreement  of  1870,  was  either  to  disapprove  or  to  do 
nothing. 

This  shows  how  sagaciously  the  whole  matter  was 
finally  arranged.  The  plan  bears  on  its  very  face 
marks  of  the  utmost  caution  and  forethought.  Had  it 
included  the  power  of  approval,  as  well  as  of  disap- 
proval, every  election  reported  between  1870  and  1891 
would  then  have  come  before  the  Assembly  for  con- 
firmation, and  might  have  led  to  any  amount  of  a  more 
or  less  excited  discussion  and  conflict  of  opinion.  An 
approval,  if  strenuously  opposed  by  only  a  small 
minority,  would  be  likely  to  prejudice  even  a  good 
appointment;  while  an  approval,  if  carried  by  a  bare 
majority,  could  hardly  fail  to  stir  up  bad  feeling  among 
the  friends  of  the  candidate,  if  not  in  his  own  breast. 
Whatever  evils  were  incident  to  the  election  of  theo- 


50  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

logical  teachers  by  the  General  Assembly,  the  plan  of 
1870  certainly  reduced  them  to  a  minimum,  as  com- 
pared ^vith  a  plan  which  should  embrace  the  power  of 
ratifying,  as  well  as  vetoing,  every  appointment.  It  is 
likely  that  between  May  9th  and  May  16th  Dr.  Adams 
not  only  took  legal  counsel,  but  that  he  also  sought  the 
counsel  of  those  two  wise  men  and  old  friends,  Dr. 
Stearns  and  Dr.  Hatfield,  with  whom  for  nearly  three 
years  he  had  been  in  the  habit  of  conferring  on  this 
very  question  of  the  theological  seminaries  in  the  Joint 
Committee  on  Reunion,  or  in  the  New  School  branch 
of  it.  That  the  General  Assembly,  under  the  rule  of 
1870  had  no  power  of  approval  is  admitted  now  on 
all  hands. 

But  there  is  another  point  concerning  which  there 
was  conflict  of  opinion;  the  point,  namely,  whether  the 
transfer  of  a  member  of  the  faculty  from  one  chair  to 
another  was  an  election  in  the  same  sense  as  an  original 
appointment,  and,  therefore  subject  to  the  Assembly's 
veto.  The  General  Assembly  at  Detroit,  as  we  shall 
see,  assumed  that  a  transfer  did  not  differ  from  an 
original  election,  and  by  a  large  majority  voted  to 
disapprove  the  transfer  of  Dr.  Briggs  from  the  chair  of 
Hebrew  and  Cognate  Languages  to  the  new  chair  of  Bib- 
lical Theology.  The  position  of  the  Board  of  Directors 
on  the  other  hand,  was  that  the  original  election  of  Dr. 
Briggs,  not  having  been  disapproved  by  the  General 
Assembly  fixed  his  status,  once  for  all,  as  a  member  of 
the  teaching  faculty  of  Union  Seminary;  and  that  his 


ANOTHER  DECADE  OF  ITS  HISTORY.  51 

transfer  to  the  chair  of  BibHcal  Theology  could  not 
therefore  unsettle,  suspend,  or  in  any  wise  change  that 
status;  it  was  simply  an  assignment  of  new  duties,  be- 
longed solely  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  board,  and  lay 
wholly  beyond  the  control  or  supervision  of  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly. 

This  view  is  enforced  by  several  considerations  :  1. 
It  harmonizes  with  the  exclusion  from  the  plan, 
adopted  by  the  directors  on  May  16th,  of  all  direct 
power  of  approval.  That  exclusion  indicates  plainly 
the  animus  and  latent,  if  not  the  deliberate,  purpose  of 
the  board.  I  say  "  latent,  if  not  deliberate  purpose," 
because  no  evidence  exists  that  in  using  the  terms 
"election"  and  "appointment"  there  was  any  thought 
or  suspicion  in  the  mind  of  a  single  director  present 
that  the  agreement  included  also  a  transfer  from  one 
chair  to  another.  Not  a  word  was  lisped  on  this 
point.*  Had  it  been  raised  then  and  there  ;  had  Dr. 
Adams,  in  explaining  his  revised  plan,  said  to  the 
board :  "  I  feel  bound  to  tell  you  frankly  that  this 
plan,  faithfully  carried  out,  will  of  necessity  render  the 
internal  administration    and  housekeeping   of  Union 

*  Among  the  members  of  the  faculty  present  was  Dr.  Philip  SchafT.  In  a 
letter  to  me  Dr.  Schaff,  referring  to  Dr.  Adams'  proposal  "  as  a  generous 
peace  offering  on  the  altar  of  the  reunion  of  Old  and  New  School,"  added  : 

My  impression  was  that  Dr.  Adams  had  previously  conferred  with  Dr. 
Charles  Hodge,  who  in  behalf  of  Princeton  was  anxious  to  get  freedom  from 
the  control  of  the  Assembly  in  the  appointment  of  professors,  (^ur  loss  was 
Princeton's  gain.  The  distinction  between  tlie  appointment  of  a  new  pro- 
fessor and  the  transfer  of  an  old  one  to  a  new  department  was  not  mentioned 
and  probably  not  even  thought  of  at  that  time.  I  myself  was  transferred 
three  times — to  the  Hebrew,  to  the  Greek,  and  to  Church  History — and  noth- 
ing was  said  about  a  veto. 


52  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

Seminary,  touching  some  of  its  vital  interests,  subject 
to  the  ultimate  control  of  the  General  Assembly  "  Mr. 
James'  protest  of  May  9th  would  have  echoed  through- 
out the  room.  The  plan  would  have  withered  on  the 
spot.  Or,  to  state  the  case  in  another  way,  had  the 
question  been  put  to  Dr.  Adams :  "  Do  you  mean  to 
include  in  the  terms  "election"  and  "apj^ointment"  a 
transfer  also,  such  as  we  often  make  from  one  chair  to 
another  ?  In  our  relations  to  the  General  Assembly 
will  the  original  status  of  one  of  our  professors  be  lost 
by  calling  him  to  new  duties  in  the  institution,  until  it 
has  been  recovered  by  subjecting  him  again  to  the  veto 
of  the  General  Assembly  ?"  the  prompt  answer,  I  am 
quite  sure,  would  have  been  :  "  Most  certainly  not ; 
that  goes  without  saying.  We  are  proposing  to  enter, 
not  into  a  legal  compact,  but  into  a  friendly  and  cour- 
teous arrangement  by  which  the  General  Assembly  shall 
have  a  voice  in  resj)ect  to  the  qualifications  of  every 
man  who  is  to  be  a  theological  teacher  in  our  seminary. 
But  once  admitted,  unforbidden,  into  our  foculty,  the 
Assembly  will  have  nothing  further  to  do  with  him 
except  indirectly,  of  course,  as  a  Pl'esbyterian  minister. 
We  are  not  trying  to  drive  a  bargain,  but  to  do  what 
seems  to  us  a  fair  and  Avise,  not  to  say  very  generous, 
thing  in  the  interest  of  the  peace  and  prosperity  of  the 
united  Church." 

2.  And  then  it  is  certainly  a  strong  incidental  con- 
firmation of  the  view  taken  by  the  directors  of  Union 
Seminary  with  regard  to  the  scope  of  the  agreement  of 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  53 

1870,  that  the  official  minutes  of  the  board  took  for 
granted  the  correctness  of  that  view.  The  board  again 
and  again  assigned  its  professors  to  new  duties  and  to 
new  chairs.  Three  times  it  transferred  Dr.  Schaff 
from  one  chair  to  another.  It  created  a  new  chair  and 
selected  Dr.  Briggs  to  fill  it,  transferring  Dr.  Brown  at 
the  same  time  to  the  chair  vacated  by  Dr.  Briggs. 
The  record  of  these  and  similar  changes  on  the  minutes 
of  the  board  varied  in  language.  The  terms  "  elected," 
"  chosen,"  "  appointed,"  "  transferred,"  were  used 
more  or  less  indiscriminately  ;  and  that  for  the  simple 
reason  that  in  the  mind  of  the  board  there  was  no 
thought  of  any  question  touching  its  own  proper 
authority  in  each  case.  Transfer  was  evidently  the 
fitting  term,  exj)ressing  both  the  fact  and  the  power ; 
and  this  is  the  word  which  had  been  chiefly  employed 
in  the  minutes  of  the  Executive  Committee  and  of  the 
Board  of  Directors  of  Union  Seminary.  If  all  "  ap- 
pointments "  in  the  literal  sense  were  subjected  to  the 
veto  of  the  General  Assembly,  temporary  assignments 
of  duty  would  have  had  to  be  reported  to  the  Assembly  ; 
for  nothing  is  more  common  than  to  "  appoint "  a  pro- 
fessor to  such  special  duties. 

3.  There  is  still  another  consideration  which  sus- 
tained the  view  that  a  transfer  is  wholly  diflerent  from 
an  original  election  ;  the  fact,  namely,  that  the  strict 
rules  and  procedure  in  the  original  election  were  not 
observed  in  the  case  of  a  mere  transfer.  The  disregard 
of  these  rules  had  in  repeated  instances  been  so  positive 


54  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

and  varied  as  to  invalidate  the  whole  action  of  the 
board,  if  a  transfer  is  the  same  thing  as  an  original 
appointment.  Alike  in  the  o]3en  disregard  of  some  of 
these  rules  and  in  inducting  at  once  into  the  new  or 
vacant  chair  without  any  respect  to  the  General  As- 
sembly —  as,  for  example,  in  the  case  of  Dr.  Briggs  — 
we  have  a  clear  demonstration  that  in  the  view  of  the 
Board  of  Directors  of  Union  Seminary,  a  transfer  had 
always  been  regarded  as  simply  an  assignment  of 
duties,  and  subject,  therefore,  neither  to  the  veto  of  the 
General  Assembly,  nor  to  a  strict  observance  of  the 
usual  forms  prescribed  by  law  and  custom  in  first  call- 
ing a  man  to  the  service  of  the  seminary. 

In  the  discussion  of  the  extent  of  the  Assembly's 
veto  power,  the  singular  point  was  made  that  we  ought 
to  distinguish  between  the  different  chairs  and  the  sub- 
ject matter  taught  in  them.  A  Jew,  for  example — sol 
heard  it  argued  by  at  least  two  eminent  directors  in  a 
leading  Presbyterian  seminary  —  a  Jew  might  make 
an  excellent  professor  of  Hebrew  ;  but  suppose,  hiding 
behind  the  technicality  of  a  transfer,  you  should  j^ut  him 
into  the  chair  of  Systematic  Theology,  would  not  that 
have  been  a  case  for  the  intervention  of  the  General 
Assembly's  veto  power  ?  I  reply,  no  ;  not  if  the  As- 
sembly had  failed  to  disapprove  of  his  taking  the  chair 
of  Hebrew.  I  freely  admit  that  there  are  devout.  God- 
fearing Jews,  abundantly  qualified  to  be  professors  of 
Hebrew  in  any  theological  seminary.  Isaac  Nord- 
heimer,  my  own  beloved  teacher,  was  such  a  man  ;   but 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  55 

the  best  and  most  learned  Jew  in  the  workl  could  not 
get  into  the  chair  of  Hebrew  in  Union  Seminary,  to  say 
nothing  of  his  transfer  to  the  chair  of  Systematic  Theol- 
ogy. How  could  a  Jew  sincerely  adopt  the  Westminster 
Confession  of  Faith  as  containing  the  system  of  doctrine 
taught  in  the  Holy  Scriptures  ?  For  that  is  the  pledge. 

{%  )  Acceptance  of  the  offer  of  Union  Seminary  made 
to  the  General  Assembly  in  the  memorial  of  1870. 

Let  us  now  go  back  to  the  meeting  of  the  Assembly 
in  Philadelphia.  Dr.  Adams,  as  we  have  seen,  was  ap- 
pointed chairman  of  the  Standing  Committee  on  Theo- 
logical Seminaries.  He  asked,  as  a  personal  favor,  I 
repeat,  to  be  excused  from  serving  in  that  capacity,  on 
the  ground  that  all  the  seminaries  under  the  care  of  the 
Assembly  belonged  to  what  had  been  the  Old  School 
branch,  but  his  request  was  not  granted.  Before  this 
committee  came  the  memorial  of  Union  Theological 
Seminary  and  also  a  memorial  from  Princeton  of  simi- 
lar tenor;  the  difference  between  them  being  that 
Princeton  asked  what  it  deemed  a  great  favor  to  itself, 
while  U  Jon  asked  what  it  believed  would  be  a  great 
favor  'a  Princeton  and  other  seminaries.  The  report 
of  t-  J  committee  led  to  no  discussion,  met  with  no  op- 
position, and  was  unanimously  adopted.  I  will  give 
the  larger  part  of  this  important  report,  italicizing  a 
few  passages : 

That  the  relations  of  these  several  theological  seminaries, 
differing  in  origin  and  administration  to  the  reunited  Church, 


56  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

should  be  regarded  as  a  matter  of  no  little  delicacy  and 
difficulty,  was  inevitable.  On  the  one  hand  it  is  obvious 
that  a  matter  so  important  as  the  education  of  its  ministry 
should  in  some  way  be  under  the  supervision  and  control  of 
the  Church,  so  as  to  secure  the  entire  and  cordial  confidence 
of  the  Church.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  liberty  and 
flexibility  in  tlic  matter  which  must  be  respected  and 
allowed.  If  individuals  or  associations  are  disposed  to  found 
and  endow  seminaries  of  their  own,  there  is  no  power  in  the 
Presbyterian  Church  to  forbid  it. 

As  to  any  project  by  which  the  entire  control  and  admin- 
istration of  all  our  theological  seminaries — for  example,  as  to 
the  election  of  trustees — can  be  transferred  to  the  General 
Assembly  on  any  principle  of  complete  uniformity,  your  com- 
mittee regard  it  as  wholly  impracticable,  and  the  attempt  to  ac- 
complish it  altogether  undesirable.  To  bring  it  about,  should 
it  be  undertaken,  would  require  an  amount  of  legislation  in 
six  or  seven  diiFerent  States,  which   would  be  portentious. 

Besides,  the  intentions  and  wishes  of  benevolent  men  who 
have  founded  and  endowed  some  of  these  seminaries,  and 
aided  others  on  their  present  footing,  should  be  honorably  and 
zealously  protected. 

Your  committee,  therefore,  would  recommend  no  change 
and  no  attempt  at  change  in  this  direction,  save  such  as 
may  safely  and  wisely  be  eifected  under  existing  charters. 

For  example,  the  directors  of  the  seminary  at  Princeton 
have  memorialized  this  Assembly  with  the  request  that  the 
Assembly  would  so  far  change  its  "plan"  of  control  over 
that  institution  as  to  give  the  Board  of  Directors  enlarged 
rights  in  several  specified  particulars,  subject  to  the  veto  of 
the  General  Assembly. 

Your  committee  are  unanimously  of  the  opinion  that  the 
changes    asked    for    are    eminently    wise   and    proper.      If  it 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  57 

were  witliin  the  power  of  the  General  Assembly  to  remit  the 
entire  administration  of  this  venerable  institution  to  its  Board  of 
Directors  without  any  of  the  restrictions  they  have  mentioned 
as  to  the  supply  of  their  own  vacancies,  tJiey  would  cordially 
recommend  it.  But  inasmuch  as  the  endowments  of  this 
seminary  are  held  on  the  condition  that  it  should  be  the 
property  and  under  the  control  of  the  General  Assembly  of 
the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United  States,  that  trust 
cannot  be  vacated  nor  transferred  to  any  other  body.  The 
method  desired  and  proposed  by  the  directors  themselves  is 
open  to  no  such  objection,  and  is  believed  to  be  quite  within 
the  provisions  of  the  law  as  now  defined,  being  only  a  con- 
venient and  wise  mode  of  executing  by  the  General  Assembly 
itself  the  trust  which  it  now  holds. 

A  memorial  has  been  presented  to  this  Assembly  from 
the  directors  of  Union  Theological  Seminary,  in  New  York, 
bearing  upon  the  point  of  uniformity  as  to  a  certain  kind 
and  amount  of  ecclesiastical  supervision. 

It  had  appeared  to  them — many  of  them  having  taken  an 
active  part  in  founding  that  seminary  thirty-three  years  ago, 
in  a  time,  as  already  noticed,  of  memorable  excitement — that 
there  were  great  disadvantages  and  perils  in  electing  pro- 
fessors and  teachers  by  the  Assembly  itself,  without  sufficient 
time  or  opportunity  for  acquaintance  with  the  qualifications 
of  men  to  be  appointed  to  offices  of  such  responsibility. 

It  is  self-evident,  as  your  committee  are  agreed,  that  a 
body  so  large  as  the  General  Assembly,  and  composed  of 
men  resident,  most  of  them,  at  so  great  a  distance  from  the 
several  seminaries,  is  not  so  competent  to  arrange  for  their 
interests  and  usefulness  as  those  having  local  and  personal 
intimacy  with  them.  Desirous  of  bringing  about  as  much 
uniformity  as  was  possible  in  the  relation  of  the  seminaries 
to  the   General    Assembly  of  the    Church,    tlie    directors    of 


58  THE   UNION  THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

Union  Seminary  have  memorialized  this  Assembly  to  the 
effect  that  the  Assembly  would  commit,  so  far  as  practicable, 
the  general  administration  of  all  seminaries  now  under  the 
control  of  the  Assembly  to  their  several  Boards  of  Directors ; 
proposing,  if  this  be  done,  to  give  to  the  General  Assembly 
what  it  does  not  now  possess,  the  right  of  veto  in  the  elec- 
tion of  professors  of  Union.  In  this  generous  offer,  looking 
solely  to  the  peace  and  harmony  of  the  Church,  the  memo- 
rialists did  not  include  the  same  veto  in  regard  to  the  elec- 
tion of  their  own  directors,  inasmuch  as  these  directors  hold 
the  property  of  the  seminary  in  trust.  The  trustees  of 
Princeton  Seminary  being  one  of  two  boards,  are  a  close 
corporation.  The  directors  of  Union  Seminary  in  New 
York,  being  but  one  board,  are  the  trustees. 

Leaving  all  the  diversities  of  method  and  administration 
in  the  several  seminaries  intact,  save  in  the  particulars  here- 
after provided  for,  your  committee  are  happy  to  report  that 
there  is  one  mode  of  unifying  all  the  seminaries  of  the  Pres- 
byterian Church  as  to  ecclesiastical  supervision  so  far  as 
unification  is  in  any  way  desirable.  It  is  the  mode  suggested 
in  the  several  memorials  of  the  directors  of  Union  and 
Princeton,  and  approved,  or  likely  to  be  approved  from 
information  in  our  possession,  by  the  directors  of  Auburn 
and  Lane.  This  is  to  give  to  the  General  Assembly  a  veto 
power  upon  the  appointment  of  professors  in  all  these  sev- 
eral institutions.  This  seems  to  your  committee  to  secure 
all  the  uniformity,  as  to  the  relation  of  these  seminaries  to 
the  Church,  which  can  be  necessary  to  ensure  general  confi- 
dence and  satisfaction.  Less  than  this  might  excite  jealousy, 
more  than  this  is  cumbersome  and  undesirable.  * 

*The  full  report  will  be  found  in  Moore's  Digest  of  1886,  pp.  383- 
386.  It  is  proper  to  say  here,  that  two  statements  in  the  report  are  some- 
what inaccurate,  namely :    that  relating  to   tiie   ecclesiastical  connection   in 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  59 

I  have  said  that  the  report  of  the  Standing  Committee 
on  Theological  Seminaries  met  with  no  opposition.  The 
offer  of  Union  Seminary,  which  was  wholly  unexpected 
to  the  great  body  of  commissioners,  whether  of  the  Old 
or  New  School,  made  the  happiest  impression  uj)on  the 
Assembly  and  called  forth  strong  words  of  satisfaction 
and  thankfulness.  And  yet  the  committee  appear  to 
have  been  in  some  doubt  whether  all  the  seminaries, 
then  belonging  to  the  General  Assembly,  would  be 
willing  to  pass  from  under  its  immediate  control ;  for 
the  report  closes  with  this  resolution  : 

In  case  the  Board  of  Directors  of  any  theological  semi- 
nary now  under  the  control  of  the  General  Assembly  should 
prefer  to  retain  their  present  relation  to  this  body,  the  plan 
of  such  seminary  shall  remain  unaltered. 

Whatever  doubt,  if  any,  led  to  this  provision,  it  was 
solved  in  the  acceptance  of  the  Princeton  plan  by  all 
the  other  seminaries  hitherto  belonging  to  the  Old 
School ;  while  Lane,  that,  like  Union,  was  independent 
of  ecclesiastical  control,  and  Auburn,  which  was  under 
the  watch  and  care  of  adjacent  Synods,  fell  in  also  with 
the  new  arrangement  by  conceding  to  the  General 
Assembly  a  veto  over  the  election  of  their  j)rofessors. 
I  do  not  find  that,  at  the  time,  these  changes  involved 
any  public  discussion,  or  even  attracted  public  notice. 
Such  was  the  confiding    and  hopeful  temper   of  the 

1836  of  the  founders  of  Union  Seminary,  and  that  relating  to  "  the  design 
of  its  founders."  Their  own  hinguage  touching  this  point,  as  also  the 
facts  with  regard  to  their  ecclesiastical  connection,  have  been  given  in  an 
earlier  part  of  this  volume. 


60  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

reunited  Church,  that  it  seems  to  have  accej^ted  the 
action  at  Philadelphia  almost  as  a  matter  of  course. 

I  have  thus  endeavored  to  trace  from  stage  •  to  stage 
the  course  of  discussion  and  of  action  with  regard  to 
theological  seminaries  in  the  Joint  Committee  on  Re- 
union, in  the  Old  and  New  School  General  Assemblies, 
in  the  Board  of  Directors  of  Union  Seminary,  and  last- 
ly in  the  Assembly  of  the  reunited  Church.  It  has 
been  my  aim  to  give  as  far  as  j^ossible  all  the  main 
facts,  omitting  nothing  essential  to  a  right  understand- 
ing of  the  case.  At  the  beginning  of  the  investigation 
my  mind  was  very  much  in  the  dark  respecting  a  num- 
ber of  important  points,  but  after  patient  research  and 
inquiry,  now  and  then  not  a  little  to  my  own  surprise, 
the  needed  light  appeared.  I  will  now  proceed  to  a 
sketch  of  the  practical  working  and  effects  of  the 
Assembly's  veto  power  from  1870  to  1891. 

(y  )  Early  and  -frequent  misapprehension  of  the  ex- 
tent of  this  power  on  the  part  of  the  General  Assembly. 
Its  quiescence  for  twenty  years. 

The  facts  bearing  on  this  point  are  equally  curious 
and  instructive.  They  are  curious  as  an  illustration  of 
the  tendency  in  all  popular  bodies, — a  tendency  partly 
innate,  and  in  part  the  effect  of  ignorance,  prejudice  or 
passion — to  stretch  their  prerogative  in  the  exercise  of 
power.  The  facts  are  instructive  as  illustrating  the  old 
maxim  that  "the  price  of  liberty  is  eternal  vigilance," 
and  also  the  painful  truth  that  even  a  court  of  Jesus 


ANOTHER   DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  61 

Christ  is  not  exempt  from  some  of  the  unloveliest 
infirmities  of  human  nature.  Good  men  when,  armed 
with  authority,  they  meet  together  for  the  performance 
of  important  duties  and  the  j^r^motion  of  sacred  objects, 
mean,  of  course,  to  do  the  thing  that  is  right  and, 
especially,  to  keep  the  whole  law  under  which  they 
act ;  but  how  strangely  they  often  err,  on  the  right 
hand  and  on  the  left ! 

Nothing  would  seem  to  be  plainer  than  the  power 
of  disapproval  as  conceded  to  the  General  Assembly  in 
1870,  and  yet  upon  the  very  first  opportunity  to  exer- 
cise this  power,  at  Chicago  in  1871,  the  Standing  Com- 
mittee on  Theological  Seminaries  recommended  the 
"approval"  of  certain  elections  reported  to  the  Assem- 
bly ;  and  had  it  not  been  for  the  presence  of  Henry  B. 
Smith  as  commissioner  from  the  Presbytery  of  New 
York,  the  recommendation  would  no  doubt  have  been 
unanimously  adopted.  The  ''official  journal"  of  the 
Assembly  contained  the  following  record : 

UNION   SEMINARY. 

Prof.  Henry  B.  Smith,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  of  Union  Theological 
Seminary,  New  York  city,  moved  an  amendment  to  the  report 
of  the  Standing  Committee  on  Theological  Seminaries,  thus  : 

Re>iolvcd,  That  the  clauses  of  the  report  of  the  committee 
be  modified  or  stricken  out  wliich  express  in  the  name  of 
the  Assembly  "approval"  of  the  elections  of  directors  or 
professors  in  the  seminaries  that  have  adopted  the  plan  sug- 
gested liy  Union  Seminary,  and    ratified  by  the  Assembly  in 


62  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

1870  (see  minutes,  pp.  64,  65,  148)  ;  since  according  to  said 
plan  such  elections  are  complete  unless  "vetoed"  by  the 
Assembly  to  which  they  are  reported. 

Dr.  Musgrave  hoped  this  amendment  would  be  sustained. 
Union  Seminary  has  courteously,  and  as  he  thought  wisely, 
conceded  this  measure  of  control  over  it  by  the  General 
Assembly,  and  it  was  only  fliir  and  honorable  to  accept  this 
amendment.      It  was  so  ordered. 


One  would  have  supposed  that  this  formal  interi^re- 
tation  of  the  extent  of  its  veto  power  contained  in  the 
resolution  offered  by  Professor  Smith,  and  seconded  by 
Dr.  Musgrave  as  "  only  fair  and  honorable,"  by  a 
unanimous  vote  of  the  Assembly  itself,  would  have 
settled  the  question  for  all  time.  It  did  no  such  thing. 
Only  two  years  later  at  Baltimore  the  Standing  Com- 
mittee on  Theological  Seminaries,  through  the  chair- 
man, the  Rev.  Dr.  E..  R.  Booth,  then  a  director  of 
Union,  repeated  the  error  of  1871,  and  was  sustained 
in  doing  so  by  the  unanimous  vote  of  the  General 
Assembly.*  Nor  was  that  the  last  of  this  remarkable 
misapprehension.  Between  1870  and  1891  about  sixty 
elections,  appointments  and  transfers  were  reported  to 
the  General  Assembly.  Of  these  some  twenty  were 
"  recognized,"  "  approved,"  or  their  "confirmation" 
voted  by  the  General  Assembly ;  in  other  words,  in  a 

*The  committee  would  recommend  that  the  Assembly  approve  the 
election  of  the  Rev.  Philip  Schaff,  D.  D.,  to  the  Brown  professorship  of 
Hebrew,  and  of  the  Rev.  George  L.  Prentiss,  D.  D.,  to  the  Skinner  and 
McAlphin  professorship  of  Pastoral  Theology,  Church  Polity,  and  Mission- 
ary [Mission]  Work,     [See  minutes  of  1873,  page  5S0]. 


ANOTHER  DECADE    OF  ITS  HISTORY.  63 

third  of  the  cases  reported,  the  General  Assembly  did 
what,  according  to  its  own  unanimous  vote  in  1871,  it 
had  no  legal  power  to  do.*  These  figures  will  be 
found  nearly,  if  not  altogether,  accurate,  and  they 
show  how  easily  the  most  intelligent  and  conscientious 
ecclesiastical  bodies  are  led  to  exercise  power  that  does 
not  belong  to  them.  The  chronic  misapj)rehension  of 
which  I  am  speaking  cropped  out  at  almost  every  turn 
in  the  newspaper  discussions  of  the  veto  power  which 
sprang  out  of  the  Briggs  case. 

For  twenty  years  the  veto  power,  conceded  to  the 
General  Assembly  in  1870  by  Union  Seminary,  re- 
mained quiescent.  During  all  this  period  it  was  never 
used.  While  many  appointments  were  "  confirmed," 
or  "approved," — illegally,  to  be  sure — not  one  was 
vetoed  ;  a  striking  proof,  certainly,  of  the  harmony  and 
good-will  that  prevailed  in  the  reunited  Church,  as 
also  of  the  wise  prudence  of  our  theological  seminaries 
in  the  choice  of  their  teachers.  It  seemed,  indeed,  as 
if  the  fears  of  Henry  B.  Smith,  D.  Willis  James  and 
others,  who  regarded  the  agreement  of  1870  with  so 
much  misgiving,  were  shown  by  the  test  of  experience 
to  have  been  groundless. 


*  Except  in  the  case  of  Auburn  Seminary.  On  entering  into  connec- 
tion with  the  General  Assembly  this  seminary  in  1873  had  adopted  a  by- 
law by  which  the  appointments  of  its  professors  were  "primarily  made 
conditional  upon  the  approval  of  the  General  Assembly."  Why  this 
change  in  the  agreement  of  1870  was  made  by  the  Board  of  Commission- 
ers of  Auburn  Seminary,  1  do  not  know.  But,  of  course,  that  seminary 
alone  was  bound  bv  it. 


64  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

The  veto  power,  however,  was  not  wholly  forgotten. 
In  the  case  of  Rev.  R.  AV.  Patterson,  D.  D.,  in  1873, 
and  perhaps  a  few  other  instances,  a  professor-elect 
and  his  friends  were  reminded,  in  a  somewhat  menacing 
way,  that  such  a  power,  though  dormant,  was  still  in 
existence,  and  might  of  a  sudden  wake  up.*  Wher- 
ever real  power  exists,  it  is  sure  to  make  itself  felt. 
Its  turn  always  comes,  sooner  or  later ;  nor  is  the 
op23ortunity  apt  to  be  neglected,  when  a  much  desired 
object,  whether  good  or  bad,  can  be  secured  by  its  ex- 
ercise. AVhat  is  called  the  "  spoils  system,"  for  exam- 
ple— a  system  which  has  done  so  much  to  poison  and 
vulgarize  our  political  life — was  largely  the  outgrowth 
of  that  simj^le  power  of  removal,  which  the  Congress 
of  1789  decided  to  belong  exclusively  to  the  President. 
At  the  time  nobody  seems  to  have  dreamed  that  any 
special  harm  would  come  through  an  abuse  of  the 
power.  Mr.  Madison,  whose  influence  was  most  potent 
in  this  decision  of  the  first  Congress,  declared  that  if  a 
President  should  exercise  his  power  of  removal  from 
mere  personal  motives,  or  except  in  extreme  cases,  he 
would  deserve  to  be  impeached.  And  for  more  than  a 
third  of  a  century  Executive  patronage  was  used  solely 


*  In  1873  my  appointment  to  a  professorship  in  the  then  Northwest- 
ern Theological  Seminary  was  threatened  with  veto  on  the  ground  that  1 
had  lately  in  the  Swing  trial  expressed  the  wish  that  the  Confession  of 
Faith  might  soon  be  revised.  How  would  that  sound  now?  But  my 
orthodox  opponents  were  quieted,  as  I  was  afterward  informed,  by  the 
statement  of  the  Committee  on  Seminaries,  that  in  not  vetoing  the  Assem- 
bly would  not  necessarily  approve.  Time  changes  both  sentiment  and 
logic.       [Letter  of  Rev.   Dr.  Patterson,  dated  Evanston,  111.,  Aug.  14,  1891]. 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  65 

as  a  public  trust  by  Washington  and  the  other  great 
patriots  who  then  ruled  the  country.  Even  after  1820, 
when  the  mischievous  "Four  Years"  law  was  passed, 
during  the  second  term  of  Monroe  and  the  whole  term 
of  John  Quincy  Adams,  very  few  removals  were  made, 
and  those  in  every  case  for  cause.  Only  here  and 
there  a  far-seeing  statesman  surmised  what,  during  the 
next  third  of  a  century,  lay  wrapped  up  in  the  unlim- 
ited power  of  removal,  when,  instead  of  being  used  as 
a  public  trust,  it  was  going  to  be  so  largely  prostituted 
to  vulgar  greed  and  the  ruthless  animosities  of  selfish 
partisanship.  How  different  it  is  now  !  The  "spoils 
system  "  has  come  to  be  regarded,  not  merely  by  a  few 
far-seeing  statesmen,  but  by  tens  of  thousands  of  our 
most  thoughtful  and  patriotic  citizens,  of  both  parties, 
as,  on  the  whole,  the  greatest  evil  that,  since  the  over- 
throw of  slavery,  has  beset  the  moral  life  of  the  coun- 
try. To  this  illustration  from  our  political  history 
how  easy  it  would  be  to  give  still  more  impressive 
illustrations  from  the  history  of  the  Christian  Church, 
of  the  way  in  which  power  long  quiescent,  may  of  a 
sudden,  when  the  fitting  opportunity  occurs,  spring  into 
vigorous  and  baleful  action. 


66  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 


CHAPTER   II. 

THE    FIRST    EXERCISE    OF     THE     VETO     POWER     AND     ITS 
CONSEQUENCES. THE    DETROIT    ASSEMBLY. 

We  come  now  to  a  new  and  highly  interesting  chap- 
ter in  the  history  of  the  veto  given  to  the  General 
Asssembly  by  Union  Seminary  in  1870.  Months  be- 
fore the  Assembly  of  1891  met  at  Detroit,  it  became 
apparent  to  observing  eyes  that  the  transfer  of  the 
Rev.  Charles  A.  Briggs,  D.D.,  to  the  new  chair  of 
Biblical  Theology  in  Union  Seminary,  was  to  be  sharply 
contested,  and,  if  possible,  vetoed.  The  contest,  of 
course,  would  rest  upon  the  ground  that  a  transfer  was 
equivalent  to  an  original  election,  and  subject,  there- 
fore, to  the  disapproval  of  the  General  Assembly. 
There  existed  throughout  the  Presbyterian  Church 
much  dissatisfaction  with  some  of  Dr.  Briggs'  views  as 
expressed  in  his  writings ;  and  had  opj)ortunity  oc- 
curred sooner,  it  would  doubtless  have  been  seized  to 
attempt  his  removal,  by  act  of  the  General  Assembly, 
from  the  faculty  of  Union  Seminary. 

The  feeling  against  Dr.  Briggs,  already  existing  and 
wide-spread,  was  greatly  intensified  by  the  address 
he  delivered  on  being  inducted  into  his  new  chair, 
January  20, 1891.  In  response  to  this  address,  a  large 
number  of  Presbyteries  overtured    the    General    As- 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  67 

sembly  on  the  subject.  The  address  led  also  to  the 
initiation  of  a  judicial  process  in  the  Presbytery  of 
New  York  When  the  General  Assembly  met  on  the 
21st  of  May,  the  excitement  about  Dr.  Briggs  and  his 
case  had  reached  a  very  high  pitch.  The  press,  both 
religious  and  secular,  discussed  the  matter  with  extra- 
ordinary interest.  There  had  been  nothing  like  it 
since  the  reunion ;  nothing,  in  truth,  like  or  equal  to  it 
since  the  tempestuous  days  of  1837-38,  when  both  the 
ecclesiastical  and  theological  storm-centre  swept  down 
with  such  fury  on  the  old  "  City  of  Brotherly  Love." 
And  the  key  to  the  whole  situation  was  the  veto  power. 
Had  it  been  admitted  on  all  hands  that  a  transfer  dif- 
fered essentially  from  an  original  election,  and  was  not 
subject  to  the  Assembly's  disapproval,  there  still  might 
have  been  a  Dr.  Briggs  case,  but  it  would  not  have 
been  the  case  that  in  May,  1891,  drew  the  attention  of 
the  whole  country  to  Detroit. 

{a )  The  General  Assembly  at  Detroit,  and  how  to 
judge  its  course. 

Although  my  own  opinion  of  the  action  of  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly  at  Detroit,  in  the  case  of  Dr.  Briggs 
was  anything  but  favorable,  my  impression  of  the  As- 
sembly itself  was  favorable,  on  the  whole,  in  a  high 
degree.  The  commissioners  came  from  far  and  near, 
from  city  and  country,  from  the  Atlantic  and  the 
Pacific  shores,  and  from  the  most  distant  parts  of 
heathendom.     They  differed  immensely  in  age,  in  train- 


68  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

ing,  in  experience,  in  temperament,  in  social  habits  and 
tastes,  in  their  way  of  looking  at  things,  in  the  types 
of  piety  and  religious  thought  Avhich  they  represented  ; 
but  they  seemed  to  be  very  much  alike  in  their  love  to 
Jesus  Christ,  in  their  faith  in  His  blessed  Gospel,  m 
their  reverence  for  the  Holy  Scriptures,  in  their  God- 
fearing patriotism  and  philanthropy.  Eye-witnesses 
told  me  that  they  never  saw  a  body  of  good  men  who 
appeared  more  sincerely  desirous  to  do  right,  and  to  do 
it  in  a  Christian  spirit.  I  was  especially  touched  by 
what  I  heard  about  Judge  Breckinridge,  for  it  recalled 
pleasant  boyish  impressions  of  his  distinguished  and 
excellent  father.  He  belonged  to  a  historic  family, 
and  his  own  character  added  honor  to  the  name.  Only 
the  evening  before  his  sudden  death  he  expressed  to  a 
friend  of  mine  his  keen  anxiety  respecting  the  case  of 
Dr.  Briggs,  and  his  deep  sense  of  responsibility  in  the 
vote  he  was  about  to  give.  His  last  words  attest  how 
sincerely  he  spoke. 

It  is  quite  possible  to  respect  and  even  admire  a 
man's  character,  and  to  take  for  granted  the  purity  of 
his  motives  without  always  approving  his  conduct  or 
assenting  to  his  logic.  And  what  is  thus  true  with  re- 
gard to  individuals,  may  be  no  less  true  with  regard  to 
a  body  of  men,  to  a  party,  to  a  community,  and  to  a 
whole  people.  Were  it  not  so,  history  instead  of  being 
one  of  the  most  interesting  of  studies,  would  be  repul- 
sive and  demoralizing  beyond  expression.  It  will 
ever  redound  to  the  honor  of  the  American  peoj^le  that 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  69 

when  the  stress  and  agony  of  their  struggle  for  National 
life  and  union  was  once  passed,  the  whirlwind  of  em- 
bittered passions  it  had  aroused,  began  to  subside,  just 
as  the  waves  of  an  angry  sea  dashing  upon  a  rock- 
bound  coast,  die  away  after  the  storm  is  over.  And 
these  passions  have  been  subsiding  ever  since.  The 
magnanimous  and  patriotic  sentiments  of  mutual  con- 
fidence, love,  patience  and  brotherhood,  which  are  the 
crowning  glory  of  our  Christian  civilization,  have  been 
taking  their  jDlace,  until  the  billows  of  sectional  strife 
have  at  last 

Quite  forgot  to  rave, 
While  birds  of  calm  sit  l)rooding  on  the  charmed  wave. 

What  a  striking  illustration  of  the  same  thing  our 
Presbyterian  annals  afford  in  the  reunion  of  1869 ! 
We  retained,  whoever  cared  to  do  so,  our  old  differ- 
ences of  oj^inion  respecting  the  causes  and  merits,  or 
demerits,  of  the  Exscinding  Acts,  the  disruption  of 
1838,  and  the  thirty  years  of  alienation  between  Old 
School  and  New  School ;  but  for  all  that,  led  no  doubt 
by  a  Divine  hand,  we  came  together  again  in  the  spirit 
of  mutual  trust  and  love,  forgiving  and  forgetting,  in 
order  that  we  might  the  more  effectually  do  the  good 
works  foreordained  for  us  as  a  Church  to  walk  in. 
And  yet,  even  to  this  day,  how  far  are  we  from  think- 
ing alike  about  the  events  of  1837-38,  or  about  the 
wisdom  of  the  men  who  taught  and  led  the  contending 
schools  !     But  it  now  costs  us  probably  no  great  effort 


70  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

to  admit  that  they,  at  all  events,  were  good  men,  fear- 
ing God,  and  honestly  meaning,  as  well  as  trying,  to 
keep  His  commandments. 

For  myself,  I  remember  well  the  day  when  to  my 
youthful  fancy  Albert  Barnes  was  the  very  embodi- 
ment of  pious  good  sense,  meek  wisdom,  and  upright- 
ness, as  well  as  freedom  of  mind  in  the  interpretation 
of  Holy  Scripture ;  while  Robert  J.  Breckinridge  ap- 
peared to  me  as  a  pugnacious  theological  "  fire-eater," 
a  domineering  ecclesiastic,  and  a  persecutor  of  the 
saints.  My  impression  of  Albert  Barnes  was  only  con- 
firmed when,  years  later,  I  learned  to  love  and  revere 
him  as  a  personal  friend.  But  time  and  memorable 
hours  more  than  a  third  of  a  century  ago,  of  most  in- 
teresting talk  with  him,  in  the  company  of  Henry  B. 
Smith,  Eoswell  D.  Hitchcock,  Howard  Crosby,  Taylor 
Lewis  and  Henry  M.  Field,  and  other  congenial 
spirits,  quite  revolutionized  my  impression  of  Bobert 
J.  Breckinridge,  and  while  not  much  changing  my 
opinion  of  certain  features  of  his  course  in  1837-38,  his 
relentless  hostility  to  reunion,  or  his  way  of  doing 
things,  I  have  ever  since  had  no  trouble  whatever  in 
thinking  of  him  as  a  devoted  servant  of  the  Lord,  as 
an  able  theologian,  an  humble  Christian,  a  great- 
hearted patriot,  and  a  brave,  even  if  a  somewhat  rugged, 
type  of  old  Kentucky  manhood.* 

*Here  is  an  entry  in  my  little  diary  under  date  of  August  18,  1857: 
"  Breakfasted  at  Mr.  Field's,  of  'The  Evangelist,'  with  Dr.  Robert  J. 
Brec^kinridge,  the  famous  Exscinder,  a  very  original  and  interesting  man — 
a  true  Kentuckian." 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  71 

While,  then,  I  feel  bound  to  criticise  the  Assembly's 
action  in  the  case  of  Dr.  Briggs  as  unfair,  wrong,  and 
unwise  in  the  extreme,  let  no  one  suppose  me  to  be 
imputing  bad  motives  either  to  the  Assembly  or  to  all 
the  men  who,  as  I  think,  misled  it.  So  far  from  im- 
puting unworthy  motives  to  most  of  the  commissioners 
to  the  Assembly  at  Detroit,  I  can  readily  believe  that 
they  were  actuated  by  the  best  of  motives.  By  their 
votes  in  disapproval  of  Dr.  Briggs'  transfer  to  the  chair 
of  Biblical  Theology,  they  meant  to  express  no  per- 
sonal hostility  to  him,  but  a  hostility  to  what  they  had 
read  or  been  assured  a  hundred  times  over,  and  what 
they  honestly  supposed,  were  his  opinions  and  teaching 
respecting  the  inspiration  and  authority  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures.  And  had  I  been  a  member  of  the  Assem- 
bly, viewed  the  subject  as  they  did,  and  deemed  it  right 
to  vote  at  all,  my  vote  would  jDrobably  have  gone  with 
theirs.  From  the  bottom  of  my  heart  I  sympathize 
.with  all  pious  and  tender  feelings  toward  the  Bible, 
with  jealousy  of  any  rival  to  its  authority,  with  pain 
and  grief  at  seeing  it  assailed  from  without  or  lightly 
esteemed  in  the  house  of  its  friends,  and  with  awe  of 
the  divine  majesty  and  glory  of  its  truths.  Perhaps 
more  or  less  of  ignorance  and  prejudice  may  be  mixed 
up  with  these  sentiments.  Be  it  so,  but  how  much  of 
prejudice  and  ignorance  is  apt  to  be  mixed  up  with 
everybody's  best  sentiments  !  If  I  must  choose  between 
ignorant  and  prejudiced  but  sincere  love  to  the  Word 
of  God  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  a  rational- 


72  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

istic,  fault-finding,  reckless  temper  of  mind  toward  it, 
I  infinitely  prefer  the  former.  The  Word  of  God, 
which  liveth  and  abideth  forever,  is  the  sure  founda- 
tion and  germinant  principle  of  American  piety.  It 
was  so  in  the  beginning  of  our  religious  life  as  a  peo- 
ple ;  it  has  been  so  ever  since ;  and  unless  we  prove 
recreant  to  our  great  trust,  it  will  be  so  in  all  the  years 
to  come.  So  far  as  criticism  of  the  Bible,  whether 
literary  or  theological,  aims  or  tends  to  subvert  this 
foundation  and  put  something  else  in  jolace  of  this  prin- 
ciple, I,  for  one,  am  opposed  to  it  utterly.  And  had  it 
not  been  my  belief  that  Dr.  Briggs  could  and  would 
say  amen  to  this  sentiment,  I'  should  have  been  equally 
opposed  to  him  also.  Biblical  criticism,  whether  of  the 
higher  or  lower  sort,  is  very  far  from  being  an  exact 
science,  and  it  mars  its  own  best  work  just  in  the 
degree  that  it  puts  on  the  airs  of  an  exact  science,  and 
shouts  before  it  is  out  of  the  woods.  That  was  the  bane 
of  rationalism,  and  if  co-existing  with  it,  is  none  the  less 
a  bane  of  the  most  orthodox  Christian  scholarship. 
Seed  thou  a  mmi  tvise  in  his  own  conceit  f  There  is  more 
hope  of  a  fool  than  of  hiin.  This  senseful  proverb  ap- 
plies not  to  persons  alone.  It  applies  also  to  every 
kind  of  knowledge  relating  to  moral  and  religious 
truth,  more  especially  to  every  branch  of  knowledge 
that  deals  with  Holy  Scripture.  Scholarship  may  be 
never  so  able  and  learned,  yet  if  puffed  up  with  self- 
conceit,  if  not  animated  by  the  spirit  of  humility  and 
reverence,  it  is  certain  to  go  astray.     "  Let  no  man," 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OE  ITS  HISTORY.  73 

to  use  the  words  of  Lord  Bacon,  "  upon  a  weak  conceit 
of  sobriety  or  an  ill-applied  moderation,  think  or  main- 
tain that  a  man  can  search  too  far  or  be  too  well  studied 
in  the  book  of  God's  word  or  in  the  book  of  God's 
works,  divinity  and  philosophy ;  but  rather  let  men 
endeavor  an  endless  progress  and  j^roficience  in  both  ; 
.only  let  men  beware  that  they  apply  both  to  charity 
and  not  to  swelling ;  to  use,  and  not  to  ostentation." 

(5)  The  case  against  Union  Seminary  as  argued  by 
John  J.  llcCook. 

The  case  against  Union  Seminary  had  been  set  be- 
fore the  commissioners  in  a  variety  of  ways,  especially 
by  the  religious  papers  of  the  denomination,  before 
they  left  home  and  on  their  way  to  Detroit.  Probably 
its  most  plausible  presentation  after  their  arrival  there 
was  in  an  elaborate  lawyer's  brief,  prepared  by  John 
J.  McCook,  a  prominent  member  of  the  New  York  bar.''' 

This  brief,  bristling  with  points,  and  fortified  by  an 
array  of  legal  autliority,  was  well  fitted  prima  facie  to 
im23ress  the  ordinary  lay,  or  even  clerical  mind.  And 
there  is  no  doubt  that  both  by  its  arguments  and  its 
statements  it  contributed  not  a  little  to  confuse  and 
mislead  the  General  Assembly,  as  also  the  Christian 

*  One  Hundred  and  Third  General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  Church 
in  the  United  States  of  America,  Detroit,  May,  1891.  Memorandum  of  facts 
and  the  law  controlling  the  relations  of  Union  Theological  Seminary  in  the 
city  of  New  York  to  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in 
the  United  States  of  America,  by  John  J.  McCook,  commissioner  from  the 
Presbytery  of  New  York. 


74  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

public,  in  regard  to  the  facts  and  law  of  the  case.  It 
contained  charges,  too,  of  a  very  grave  character 
against  the  good  faith  of  Union  Seminary.  For 
these  reasons  it  requires  special  notice  in  this  his- 
torical  sketch. 

It  was  noteworthy,  first  of  all,  that  a  lawyer's  brief, 
prepared  with  such  care  and  so  confident  in  its  tone,, 
should  have  betrayed  throughout  utter  misapprehen- 
sion as  to  one  of  the  most  obvious  features  of  the  veto 
power,  as  conceded  to  the  General  Assembly,  namely  : 
that  it  was  solely  a  power  of  tZ is-apiiroval.  Here  are 
instances  in  point :  "  Thus  all  appointments  of  pro- 
fessors are,  and  the  safety  of  the  Church  demands  that 
they  always  should  be,  made  by  the  directors  condition- 
ally first  upon  the  approval  of  the  General  Assembly." 
(p.  18.)  "  It  is  intimated  in  a  statement  by  the  faculty 
of  the  seminary  which  appeared  in  the  secular  j^ress  of 
May  16,  1891,  and  in  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Day,  already 
referred  to,  .  .  .  that  Professor  Briggs  having  been 
once  ai^pointed  a  professor  in  the  seminary,  with  the 
approval  of  the  General  Assembly,  his  joresent  ajDj^oint- 
ment  is  merely  a  transfer."  (p.  27.)  ''  The  only 
question  before  this  Assembly  is  the  exercise  of  the 
power  granted  to  it  by  Union  Seminary  under  the  con- 
tract, viz .,  to  approve  or  disapprove  the  appointment 
by  transfer  of  Dr.  Briggs  to  the  new  chair  of  Biblical 
Theology."  (p.  31.)  Here  were  three  instances  in 
which  Mr.  McCook  stated  as  fact  and  law  in  the  case 
what  was  in  direct  conflict  with  the  unanimous  decision 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  75 

of  the  General  Assembly  of  1871,  a  decision  which  at 
the  time  Dr.  Musgrave  declared  to  be  "  only  fair  and 
honorable"  ! 

Mr.  McCook  opened  his  brief  with  a  statement  of 
what  he  regarded  as  the  material  facts  bearing  uj)on 
the  case.  He  then  proceeded  to  make  this  starting 
point :  "  The  memorial  of  the  directors  of  Union  Sem- 
inary of  May  18,  1870,  and  the  subsequent  action  of  the 
General  Assembly  thereupon,  constituted  a  contract 
upon  valid  considerations.^^  As  to  the  meaning  of  a 
contract  he  quoted  Story's  definition :  "  Whenever 
any  injury  to  the  one  jDarty  or  any  benefit  to  the  other 
party  springs  from  a  consideration,  it  is  sufficient  to 
support  a  contract."  The  contract  between  Union 
Seminary  and  the  General  Assembly,  he  said,  contains 
considerations  of  both  kinds  mentioned  by  Story, 
"  injury  and  benefit."  "  There  was  a  substantial  con- 
cession on  the  part  of  the  General  Assembly,  in  that 
it  gave  up  rights  of  control  which  it  had  theretofore 
possessed  over  some  of  the  seminaries  [that  was  the 
injury~\  ;  and  there  was  benefit  to  the  Union  Seminary  in 
securing  the  influence  and  name  of  the  General  Assem.- 
bly  to  reassure  pupils  and  benefactors  as  to  its  ortho- 
doxy." Of  course  Mr.  McCook  did  not  suppose  he 
was  jesting  in  the  use  of  this  language ;  he,  no  doubt, 
believed  himself  to  be  asserting  a  simple  fact.  But 
had  William  Adams,  Henry  B.  Smith,  Thomas  H. 
Skinner,  Boswell  D.  Hitchcock,  Edwin  F.  Hatfield 
and   Jonathan  F.  Stearns — not   to   mention  others — 


76  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

listened  to  such  a  statement  they  would  have  regarded 
its  author  as  only  jesting,  and  that  in  a  very  strange 
way.  Not  one  of  them,  I  am  sure,  ever  heard  a  lisp 
of  it  from  any  resjDonsible  source,  either  before  or  after 
1870.  And  although  for  nearly  forty  years  connected 
with  Union  Seminary,  as  director  or  j)rofessor,  I  read 
it  for  the  first  time  in  Mr.  McCook's  Detroit  brief. 
The  statement  imj^lied  that  both  pupils  and  benefac- 
tors, being  in  serious  doubt  respecting  the  orthodoxy 
of  the  institution,  found  relief  in  the  agreement  of 
1870.  What  pupils  ?  What  benefactors  ?  and  where 
was  the  evidence  that  the  seminary  entered  into  the 
"contract"  of  1870  in  order  to  reassure  its  pupils  and 
benefactors  as  to  its  own  orthodoxy  ?  There  was  no 
evidence.  The  whole  statement  was  not  only  utterly 
without  foundation  but  it  involved  a  highly  offensive 
imputation  upon  the  General  Assembly,  upon  Union 
Seminary,  and  upon  all  the  2)arties  concerned.  Is  it 
strange  that  when  the  directors,  the  faculty,  and  the 
friends  of  Union  Seminary  read  it  in  Mr.  McCook's 
brief,  or  as  it  was  reported  far  and  wide  by  the  public 
press,  they  were  filled  with  indignation  ? 

No  principle  laid  down  in  the  basis  of  reunion  in 
1869  was  more  emphatically  asserted  than  that  of  the 
perfect  equality  of  both  branches.  Old  School  and  New, 
in  the  matter  of  their  orthodoxy.  The  whole  move- 
ment hinged  upon  the  distinct  recognition  of  this 
principle.  Had  Dr.  Musgrave,  Dr.  Beatty,  and  tlie 
other  Old  School  leaders  intimated  that  Union  Semi- 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  77 

nary  was  not  as  sound  in  tlie  faith  as  Princeton, 
and  needed  the  influence  of  the  General  Assembly 
to  "  reassure  pupils  and  benefactors  as  to  its  ortho- 
doxy," that  of  itself  would  have  broken  up  the  nego- 
tiations for  union. 

The  second  "  good  and  valuable  consideration,"  re- 
ceived by  the  Union  Seminary  under  this  "  contract," 
according  to  Mr.  McCook,  was  "  a  large  increase  of  its 
students,"  drawn  from  all  parts  of  the  reunited  Church. 
This  statement  also  lacked  foundation.  Reunion 
brought  very  few  students  to  Union  Seminary ;  while 
it  tended,  in  several  ways,  to  draw  them  elsewhere.  It 
wrought  a  great  change,  for  example,  in  the  feeling  of 
New  School  men  toward  Old  School  seminaries,  as  well 
as  toward  the  Old  School  church ;  and  thus  led  more 
or  less  of  those  studying  for  the  ministry  to  enter  these 
seminaries,  who  would  never  have  thought  of  doing  so 
before  1870.  Prior  to  reunion  few  of  the  bright  young 
men  of  the  New  School  church  cared  to  study  theology 
in  an  Old  School  seminary.  The  following  table  fur- 
nished me  by  the  Rev.  Charles  R.  Gillett,  D.  D., 
librarian  of  Union  Seminary,  shows  at  a  glance  the 
number  of  students  for  twenty  years  before  and  twenty 
years  after  1870,  and  will  enable  the  reader  to  judge 
for  himself  as  to  the  probable  influence  of  the  General 
Assembly  upon  the  increase  of  its  students  by  "  reas- 
suring pupils  and  benefactors  of  the  orthodoxy  "  of  the 
institution.  This  increase,  it  will  be  seen,  was  from  the 
first  somewhat  irregular.     Special  causes  from  time  to 


rs 


THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 


time  depleted  the  seminary.  The  war  for  the  Union 
had  this  effect  in  a  marked  degree.  In  the  four  years 
1861-65,  not  a  few  Union  students,  or  young  men,  who 
were  intending  to  enter  Union  Seminary,  were  at  the 
front,  fighting  the  battles  of  their  country.  Then 
again  special  causes  occasionally  increased  the  number 
of  students  ;  as,  for  example,  the  expectation  that  the 
World's  Fair  would  be  held  in  New  York.  It  is 
doubtful  if  the  endorsement  of  its  orthodoxy  by  the 
General  Assembly  during  all  the  twenty  years  added  a 
dozen  names  to  the  roll  of  students  in  Union  Seminary. 


Students  in  Union  Seminary,   by  years  and  classes. 
Undergraduates  only. 


YEAR. 

SENIORS. 

MIDDLERS. 

JUNIORS. 

TOTALS. 

1890-91  .  .  . 

43 

60 

49 

152 

1889-90  . 

43 

49 

66 

158 

1888-89  . 

36 

.  47 

44 

127 

1887-88  . 

35 

39 

51 

125 

1886-87  . 

53 

41 

36 

130 

1885-86  . 

37 

49 

33 

119 

1884-85  . 

39 

37 

55 

131 

1883-84  . 

33 

37 

41 

111 

1882-83  . 

39 

35 

42 

116 

1881-82  . 

37 

40 

43 

120 

1880-81  . 

36 

44 

40 

120 

1879-80  . 

38 

42 

50 

130 

1878-79  . 

43 

37 

39 

119 

1877-78  . 

45 

50 

47 

142 

1876-77  . 

48 

44 

47 

139 

1875-76  . 

36 

49 

51 

136 

1874-75  . 

43 

33 

40 

116 

1873-74  . 

37 

40 

34 

111 

1872-73  . 

42 

42 

36 

120 

1871-72  . 

36 

40 

38 

114 

Averages. 

39.95 

42.75 

44.10 

126.8 

ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY 


79 


YEAR. 

SENIORS. 

MIDDLERS. 

JUNIORS. 

TOTALS. 

1870-71     .     .     . 

37 

36 

37 

110 

1869-70 

39 

37 

37 

113 

1868-69 

43 

44 

40 

127 

1867-68 

44 

42 

47 

133 

1866-67 

26 

51 

31 

108 

1865-66 

35 

38 

50 

123 

1864-65 

23 

39 

38 

100 

1863-64 

26 

27 

32 

85 

1862-68 

28 

30 

28 

86 

1861-62 

38 

32 

39 

109 

1860-61 

37 

56 

40 

133 

1859-60 

33 

49 

59 

141 

1858-59 

38 

39 

43 

120 

1857-58 

25 

40 

43 

108 

1856-57 

23 

33 

46 

102 

1855-56 

19 

31 

40 

90 

1854-55 

26 

32 

38 

96 

1853-54 

27 

31 

40 

98 

1852-53 

22 

24 

34 

80 

1851-52 

23 

21 

30 

74 

Averages. 

30.6 

36.6 

39.6 

.106.8 

YEAR. 

SENIORS. 

MIDDLERS. 

JUNIORS. 

TOTALS. 

1850-51     .     .     . 

20 

28 

25 

73 

1849-50     . 

31 

20 

41 

92 

1848-49     . 

27 

32 

32 

91 

1847-48     . 

30 

37 

36 

103 

1846-47     . 

40 

32 

43 

115 

1845-46     . 

25 

45 

30 

100 

1844-45     . 

29 

30 

46 

105 

1843-44     . 

22 

40 

31 

93 

1842-43     . 

25 

29 

44 

98 

1841-42     . 

32 

31 

39 

102 

1840-41     . 

23 

43 

33 

99 

1839-40     . 

24 

41 

55 

120 

1838-39     . 

28 

26 

32 

86 

Averages. 

27.4 

33.4 

37.4 

98.2 

The  third  "  good  and  valuable  consideration " 
received  by  Union  Seminary  under  this  "  contract," 
according  to  Mr.  McCook,  consisted  in  the  financial 
aid  granted  each  year  to  its  students  from  the  Board 


80  THE   UNION  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

of  Education  of  the  Presbyterian  Church.  But  the 
students  of  Union  Seminary  had  received  financial  aid 
every  year  from  the  New  School  Committee  of  Educa- 
tion. After  1870  they  received  similar  aid  from  the 
Board  of  Education  of  the  reunited  Church.  Was  a 
dollar  coming  by  way  of  Philadelphia  a  better  dollar 
than  used  to  come  from  the  treasury  of  the  New  School 
Committee  of  Education  in  New  York?  Was  there 
more  silver  or  more  gold  in  it  ?  Was  it  stam^Ded  with 
a  stronger  assurance  of  orthodoxy  ? 

The  fourth  and  last  "  good  and  valuable  considera- 
tion," binding  Union  Seminary  fast  to  its  "  contract," 
consisted  in  "  large  additions  to  its  endowments  and 
funds  such  as  those  received  from  James  Brown,  Esq., 
Gov.  Morgan,  and  others  which  have  been  asked  for 
and  received  since  1870  upon  the  guarantee  of  its 
orthodoxy  through  its  relation  to  the  General  Assembly 
under  this  contract  and  the  provisions  of  its  constitu- 
tion." I  do  not  pretend  to  say  that  none  of  the  bene- 
factors of  the  seminary  were  more  or  less  influenced  by 
their  confidence  in  the  orthodoxy  of  the  institution,  as 
guaranteed  by  its  relations  to  the  General  Assembly. 
I  do  not  know.  Men  are  usually  led  by  a  variety  of 
motives  to  give  away  their  money,  especially  when  they 
do  it  on  a  large  scale.  Of  one  of  the  benefactors 
named,  Gov.  Morgan,  I  feel  entitled  to  speak  with 
some  confidence.  In  1851  I  preached  a  sermon  to  my 
j)eople  on  the  position,  character,  and  claims  of  Union 
Theological    Seminary,   urging  its  immediate  endow- 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  81 

ment.  The  sermon  made  no  allusion  to  the  General 
Assembly,  or  to  what  Mr.  McCook  seemed  to  under- 
stand by  Presbyterian  orthodoxy  ;  but  did  set  forth 
what  I  held,  and  still  hold,  to  be  the  chief  purpose  and 
function  of  a  great  metro23olitan  institution  of  Christian 
theology  and  learning  like  Union  Seminary,  Thirty 
years  later  Gov.  Morgan  was  kind  enough  to  write  to 
me  respecting  my  sermon  :  "  There  is  not  an  expres- 
sion in  it  which  I  do  not  apj^rove.  I  thank  you  from 
the  bottom  of  my  heart  for  presenting  this  vastly  im- 
portant subject  in  its  true  light."  Here  follow  a  few 
passages  from  the  sermon  which  met  his  hearty  ap- 
proval : 

The  character  of  Union  Seminary  is  eminently  catholic 
in  the  true  sense  of  the  word  ;  it  is  at  once  liberal  and  con- 
servative. There  is  nothing  that  I  am  aware  of  in  its 
history,  nothing  in  its  associations,  nothing  in  its  general 
policy,  nothing  in  its  temper,  which  would  make  this  insti- 
tution cleave  inordinately  to  the  past  or  to  the  future ; 
which  should  render  it  unstable  in  the  ways  of  old  truth,  or 
unwilling  to  greet  new  truth  with  a  friendly  welcome;  noth- 
ing which  commits  it  to  any  party  or  prevents  its  cordial 
relations  with  all  parties  that  love  the  Gospel  and  Christian 
union.  It  stands  in  special  connection  with  our  own  branch 
of  the  great  Presbyterian  family,  but  it  numbers  on  its  Board 
of  Directors,  and  among  its  Avarmcst  friends,  influential  mem- 
bers of  the  other  branch ;  while  it  seeks  its  professors  and 
attracts  its  students  as  readily  from  the  old  Puritan  body  of 
New  England,  as  if  its  predilections  were  all  Congregational. 
If  you    will    have    an    institution    occupying    as    catholic    a 


82  THE   UNION  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

ground  as  the  distracted  state  oi  the  Church  in  our  day 
seems  to  permit,  I  do  not  know  how  you  can  well  come 
nearer  to  such  a  plan  than  have  the  founders  of  Union  Sem- 
inary. Its  main  advantages  are  as  accessible  and  useful  to 
a  Baptist,  a  Methodist,  an  Episcopalian,  or  a  Congregation- 
alist,  as  to  a  Presbyterian ;  and  students  of  all  these  and  of 
other  denominations  have  availed  themselves  of  them.  Let 
it  be  understood  that  in  what  I  have  said,  or  may  say,  I 
cast  no  reflection  upon  any  other  seminary.  All  honor  to 
Princeton,  and  Lane,  and  Auburn,  and  Andover,  and  Bangor, 
and  New  Haven,  and  others  of  whatever  name,  that  are 
doing  the  Master's  work ! 

As  the  seat,  too,  of  a  liberal  and  profound  theological 
culture  New  York  ought  to  stand  foremost  in  the  land. 
She  ought  for  her  own  sake.  There  is  perhaps  no  other 
power,  after  the  Word  preached,  which  would  do  more  to 
preserve  her  Christian  influence,  wealth  and  enterprise  from 
falling  a  prey  to  the  show,  self-aggrandizement,  and  other 
vices  incident  to  the  predominance  of  a  commercial  spirit. 
She  ought  for  the  sake  of  our  country  and  the  world.  Let 
a  wise,  tolerant.  Christian  theology  flourish  here,  and  it 
would  diffuse  a  beneficent  radiance  over  the  land,  and  even 
among  pagan  nations.  The  position,  then,  of  the  Union 
Seminary  is  unsurpassed,  both  for  the  training  of  ministers 
and  for  the  cultivation  of  sacred  learning.  For  this  reason 
its  founders  planted  it  in  the  city  of  New  York. 

I  have  the  clearest  conviction  that  the  Union  Seminary 
is  capable  of  doing  a  great  work  for  Christ  and  the  Church. 
It  has  already  done  much.  Not  a  few  of  the  most  useful 
ministers  in  the  land,  not  a  few  of  our  best  missionaries  to 
the  heathen,  are  among  its  alumni.  Already,  too,  has  it 
made  important  contributions  to  the  theological  literature 
of  the  age.      But  I  trust  it  is  to  have   a  still   nobler   career 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OE  ITS  HISTORY.  83 

in  the  future.  I  look  forward  to  the  time  when  young  men 
of  piety  and  generous  endowments  shall  flock  to  it  in  thou- 
sands from  all  quarters  of  the  Republic  ;  from  California  and 
Oregon,  and  from  the  islands  of  the  sea,  even ;  when  its 
library  shall  be  the  resort  of  Christian  scholars  from  neigh- 
boring towns  and  cities ;  when  its  professorships  shall  be 
multiplied  so  as  to  embrace  one  for  each  great  branch  of 
sacred  lore ;  when  it  shall  be  the  pride  and  glory  of  our 
churches  and  its  treasury  be  continually  enriched  by  the 
princely  donations  of  the  living  and  the  dying;  when,  in  a 
word,  it  shall  be  such  a  nursery  of  men  of  God,  and  such  a 
citadel  of  holy  faith  as  the  voice  of  Providence  commands 
us  to  build  up  in  this  emporium  of  the  New  World. 

Gov.  Morgan's  letter  to  me  closed  thus : 

I  have  always  thought,  and  I  still  think,  that  New 
Yorkers,  of  all  others,  ought  to  do  something  for  a  good 
institution,  like  Union  Seminary,  in  their  own  city,  and  not 
send  all  their  money  to  Princeton.  I  am  convinced  now 
more  than  ever  that  my  judgment  in  this  respect  has  not 
been  at  fault. 

In  his  letter  to  Dr.  Adams  offering  to  establish  a 
fund  of  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  for  the  erection 
of  a  new  library  building  and  for  the  imj)rovement, 
increase  and  sujoport  of  the  library,  Gov.  Morgan  be- 
gins by  saying :  "I  desire  to  show  my  appreciation  of 
the  usefulness  of  the  Union  Theological  Seminary,  and 
to  aid  in  the  great  work  it  is  now  doing  for  the  coun- 
try.^^  No  mention  was  made  of  Presbyterian  ortho- 
doxy as  fixed  by  the  "  standard  of  the  General  Assem- 


84  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

bly."  Nor  do  I  believe  any  such  thought  passed 
through  the  mind  of  this  strong  man,  either  at  that 
time,  or  later,  when  he  added  to  his  first  gift  two 
hundred  thousand  dollars  more.  Not  long  before 
his  death,  while  busying  himself  with  "  Morgan 
Hall,"  his  generous  gift  to  Williams  College,  he  said 
one  day  to  a  friend  of  mine :  "I  see  now  clearly 
that  it  has  been  the  greatest  mistake  of  my  life 
that  I  have  not  engaged  in  this  kind  of  thing  before. 
It  is  one  of  the  greatest  pleasures  I  have  ever  expe- 
rienced. And  what  a  host  of  opportunities  I  have 
lost !  If  men  of  means  could  only  realize  what  gratifi- 
cation is  to  be  derived  in  this  way,  worthy  and  deserv- 
ing objects  would  be  fairly  besieged  with  clamorous 
donors." 

In  a  letter  from  the  late  Henry  Day  to  Mr.  John 
Crosby  Brown  there  is  still  further  testimony  to  the 
same  effect : 

Governor  Morgan's  interest  in  Union  Seminary  arose  as 
follows  :  I  was  consulting  with  him  about  his  will,  and  knew 
something  of  his  views  in  regard  to  charities.  I  then 
advised  Dr.  Adams  to  call  on  Governor  Morgan  and  lay  be- 
fore him  the  needs  of  the  seminary.  This  he  did.  The 
Governor  then  consulted  me  with  regard  to  the  institution. 
I  stated  all  the  facts  about  it,  but  made  no  mention  of  the 
arrangement  with  the  General  Assembly,  of  which  I  myself 
was  not  then  aware,  and  am  sure  he  also  had  no  knowledge. 
He  finally  concluded  to  give  the  seminary  one  hundred  thou- 
and  dollars,  and  requested  me  to  draft  a  letter  expressing 
the    terms    on    which    the    gift    was    bestowed.     This    I    did. 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  85 

The  only  wish  lie  expressed  in  regard  to  it  was  that  the 
principal  shonld  be  used  in  erecting  a  library  building,  and 
the  income,  if  any,  should  be  a})plied  to  the  improvement 
of  the  library.  The  views  controlling  him  were  that  a  sem- 
inary located  in  a  great  city,  afforded  the  students  better 
facilities  for  practical  training  for  Christian  work,  than  sem- 
inaries located  in  smaller  towns,  and  that  Union  Seminary 
should  have  the  finest  site  in  New  York. 

Mr.  McCook,  some  pages  later,  recurred  almost 
pathetically  to  the  distressing  effect  of  a  failure  to  veto 
Dr.  Briggs :  "  It  would  work  an  irreparable  wrong 
upon  those  donors,  such  as  James  Brown,  Esq.,  Gov- 
ernor Morgan,  Russell  Sage,  Esq.,  Daniel  B.  Fayer- 
weather,  Esq.,  and  others,  who  have  contributed  so 
largely  to  the  endowment  of  Union  Seminary  upon  the 
faith  of  this  arrangement  with  the  General  Assembly 
and  the  orthodoxy  of  the  seminary,  which  was  intended 
to  be  secured  thereby."  All  the  benefactors  named 
but  one  long  since  have  passed  far  beyond  the  reach 
of  such  "irreparable  wrong,"  Russell  Sage,  Esq.,  alone 
surviving.  Why  Mr.  McCook  selected  this  gentleman 
in  p)articular  from  among  a  score  or  more  of  five- 
thousand-dollar  contributors  to  the  fund  of  Union 
Seminary  as  a  special  object  of  his  sympathy,  I  do  not 
know. 

Had  I  space  it  would  be  interesting  to  dwell  a  little 
upon  some  of  the  odd  maxims  of  ecclesiastical  wisdom 
scattered  through  Mr.  McCook's  extraordinary  brief. 
They  surpass  anything  I  have  ever  found  in  l)ooks  on 


86  THE   UNION  THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

Presbyterian  Church  polity,  after  reading  and  lectur- 
ing on  the  subject  for  many  years. 

"  The  SOLE  OBJECT,  of  Union  Theological  Seminary 
is  to  uphold  and  teach  tlie  Presbyterian  standards." 
(p.  15).  "  Upon  questions  of  orthodoxy  the  directors, 
individually  and  as  a  Presbyterian  body,  are  subject 
to  the  General  Assembly.''  (p.  16).  "  The  Assembly 
merely  sets  a  standard  of  orthodoxy,  and  the  corpora- 
tion, wishing  to  be  orthodox,  agree  to  appoint  no  agent 
of  a  certain  class  who  does  not  come  up  to  it.''  (p.  18). 
"  The  standard  of  orthodoxy  for  the  seminary,  and  for 
all  Presbyterians  and  Presbyterian  institutions,  must 
be  set  by  the  General  Assembly.  AVhat  is  more 
proper,  therefore,  than  a  contract  providing  that  all 
appointees  to  the  high  and  responsible  office  of  a  pro- 
fessor in  such  a  seminary  shall  be  measured  by  this 
standard?"     (p.  17). 

But  let  us  23ass  to  Mr.  James  Brown.  Mr.  Brown 
never  expressed  any  doubt,  nor  is  there  any  good 
reason  for  thinking  he  ever  felt  any  doubt,  with  regard 
to  the  orthodoxy  of  Union  Seminary,  either  before  or 
after  1870.  Years  prior  to  the  reunion  he  had  been  a 
generous  friend  of  the  institution.  In  1865,  by  a  gift 
of  $15,000,  in  addition  of  another  of  |10,000  by  his 
brother,  John  A.  Brown,  of  Philadelphia — a  man  like- 
minded  with  himself — he  endowed  the  chair  of  Hebrew 
and  Cognate  Languages.  From  this  time  on  his  inter- 
est in  the  seminary  grew^  ever  stronger  and  deeper. 
In  January,  1870,  months  before  the  agreement  with 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  87 

the  General  Assembly,  he  gave  $30,000  toward  the 
new  endowment,  being  a  part  of  the  great  five-million 
memorial  fund.  And  then,  in  1873,  his  various  dona- 
tions culminated  in  the  splendid  gift  of  $300,000,  by 
which  the  endowment  of  every  chair  in  the  seminary 
was  raised — some  from  $25,000,  some  from  $50,000  or 
less — to  $80,000.  This  was  perhaps  the  most  wise  and 
considerate,  as  it  was  the  largest,  benefaction  to  the 
institution  up  to  that  time. 

But  while  Mr.  McCook  failed  to  adduce  any  proper 
evidence,  either  documentary  or  oral,  of  his  assertion 
respecting  the  supposed  motives  which  prompted  Mr. 
Brown's  gifts  to  Union  Seminary,  it  was  not  for  lack  of 
evidence,  clear  and  unmistakable,  as  to  the  real  mo- 
tives of  those  noble  benefactions.  The  story  of  what 
Mr.  Brown  did  for  Union  Seminary  forms  one  of  the 
most  striking  and  beautiful  episodes  in  all  its  varied 
history.  The  institution  owed  to  him  several  hundred 
thousand  dollars,  but  it  owed  him  something  far  more 
precious  than  money.  I  mean  the  inestimable  blessing 
of  having  William  Adams  as  its  president  and  one  of 
its  teachers  during  the  last  seven  years  of  his  life. 
Dr.  Hitchcock,  in  his  address  at  the  dedication  of  the 
new  buildings  on  Park  Avenue,  thus  referred  to  this 
auspicious  event : 

The  administration  of  Dr.  Adams  came  upon  us  like  a 
burst  of  sunshine.  He  had,  of  course,  first  of  all,  to  take 
care  of  his  own  department  of  Sacred  Rhetoric,  which  he 
handled  with  all  the  versatility  and  freshness   of  early  man- 


88  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

hood.  To  tliis  ho  added  the  toils  and  cares  of  an  office  which 
had  lain  dormant  for  thirty  years.  The  whole  institntion 
was  toned  up.  Professors  and  students,  equally  and  all,  felt 
the  magnetism  of  his  courtly  and  stimulating  presence.  On 
all  public  occasions  he  was  our  ornament  and  pride.  In  all 
the  dry  details  of  our  daily,  weekly  and  monthly  routine  of 
work,  he  was  a  model  of  punctuality,  precision  and  thorough- 
ness. He  possessed  in  an  eminent  degree  what  I  will  ven- 
ture to  call  the  institutional  instinct  and  habit.  He  was  a 
genuine  University  man,  always  promptly  in  his  place,  and 
always  ready  for  his  work.  He  also  believed  in  new  de- 
partures. At  an  early  date  our  course  of  study  was  care- 
fully revised  in  the  interest  of  a  severer  discipline.  During 
the  first  period  of  our  historj^,  and  some  way  on  into  the 
second  period,  there  had  been  only  tMO  lectures  a  day,  and 
these  were  between  the  hours  of  four  and  six  in  the  after- 
noon, partly  for  the  convenience  of  such  as  were  supporting 
themselves  by  outside  work.  Some  time  before  the  lectures 
had  been  pushed  back  an  hour ;  and  now  we  added  a  morn- 
ing lecture  at  eleven  o'clock,  for  the  expressed  purpose  of 
bringing  outside  work  within  the  narrowest  limits  possible. 
With  Dr.  Adams  originated  our  two  scholastic  Fellowships, 
which  have  done  so  much  for  the  higher  grade  of  service  in 
our  colleges  and  seminaries.  He  secured  for  us  in  1874,  our 
present  treasurer,  Ezra  Munson  Kingsley,  who  seems  now  so 
indispensable,  that  we  wonder  how  we  ever  got  on  without 
him.  ...  In  1875,  Dr.  Adams  procured  the  means  of 
renovating  our  old  buildings  and  erecting  a  new  one,  in  the 
expectation  of  holding  on  indefinitely  to  the  old  location. 
It  was  Governor  Morgan's  gift  on  the  29th  of  March,  1880, 
of  $100,000  —  partly  for  books  and  partly  for  a  fire-proof 
building  —  which  suddenly  changed  all  that.  Then  our  })res- 
ident  began  to   look   about   for   another   site.     Soon    after,  at 


ANOTHER  DECADE    OF  ITS  HISTORY.  89 

his  summer  home  on  Orange  Mountain,  in  New  Jersey — 
looking  oiF  upon  the  sea,  looking  up  into  the  sky  —  on  the 
last  day  of  August,  1880,  the  throbbing,  busy  pulse  stood 
still.  Of  fifty  years  of  signal  service  the  last  seven  had  been 
the  golden  autumn  of  his  life. 

To  Mr.  James  Brown,  I  repeat.  Union  Seminary 
owed  it  that  Dr.  Adams  sj)ent  the  golden  autnmn  of 
his  eminently  useful  life  in  her  service.  And  Mr. 
Brown  fully  comjorehended  the  nature  and  extent  of 
the  blessing.  Nor  is  the  secret  of  his  wise  forecast  far 
to  seek.  Mr.  Brown  (to  borrow  the  words  of  Dr. 
Hitchcock  concerning  him)  "  was  a  man  of  rare  quali- 
ties, in  most  symmetrical  combination.  With  a  judg- 
ment seldom  at  fault,  strong  of  will,  tender  in  his 
domestic  relations,  j^rofoundly  religious,  no  act  of  his 
life  was  ever  challenged,  and  absolutely  no  shadow 
darkens  his  memory.  In  the  year  1854  a  terrible 
affliction  befell  him,  A  son,  two  daughters,  a  daugh- 
ter-in-law, and  two  grandchildren,  with  two  nurses — 
passengers  on  board  the  steamer  Arctic,  returning  from 
Europe — perished  by  shipwreck.  This,  with  other 
sorrows  before  and  after,  greatly -enriched  his  religious 
life."  It  was  in  the  soil  of  such  deep  experience  that 
his  interest  in  Union  Seminary  took  root,  grew  to 
strong  sympathy  with  the  spirit  and  character  of  the 
institution,  blossomed  in  various  timely  gifts,  and  at 
length  ripened  into  the  crowning  benefaction  of  1873. 
This  great  benefaction,  it  is  asserted,  had  been  "  asked 
for  and  received  "  by  Union  Seminary  upon  the  guar- 


90  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

antee  of  its  orthodoxy,  through  its  relation  to  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly  under  the  agreement  of  1870.  This 
assertion  is  based  upon  an  entire  misajDprehension  of 
the  facts  in  the  case.  Mr.  Brown's  gift  of  $300,000 
was  never  "asked  for"  at  all.  It  was  a  purely  sponta- 
neous act  on  his  part.  When  first  announced  his 
purpose  was  a  complete  surprise  alike  to  his  own  family 
and  to  Dr.  Adams,  for  whom  he  cherished  a  singularly 
tender  and  devoted  friendship.  But  although  a  sur- 
prise when  first  announced,  it  soon  became  the  subject 
of  frequent  talks  and  also  of  correspondence  with  his 
son,  Mr.  John  Crosby  Brown,  now  president  of  the 
Union  Board  of  Directors,  who  entered  with  his  whole 
heart  into  his  father's  plan,  both  with  regard  to  the 
full  endowment  of  all  the  professorships  and  the  bring- 
ing of  Dr.  Adams  into  the  faculty  of  the  seminary. 
Most  of  the  letters  relating  to  this  matter  which  passed 
between  the  father  and  the  son,  as  also  those  which 
passed  between  Mr.  James  Brown  and  Mr.  John 
Crosby  Brown,  on  the  one  hand,  and  Dr.  Adams  on 
the  other,  are  still  in  existence  ;  and  although  replete 
with  very  interesting  details,  alike  of  plan  and  feeling, 
there  is  not  in  one  of  them  the  remotest  allusion  to  the 
"orthodoxy"  of  Union  Seminary  as  guaranteed  by  the 
agreement  of  1870. 

To  return  to  Mr.  Brown's  motives.  Here  is  the  tes- 
timony of  Mr.  John  Crosby  Brown,  the  one  man  living 
specially  entitled  and  best  qualified  to  bear  witness  on 
the  subject : 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  91 

The  motives  which  prompted  my  father's  gifts  to  Union 
Seminary  at  this  time,  as  I  well  know  from  frequent  con- 
versations with  him,  were  mainly  the  following:  (1)  Sym- 
pathy with  the  principles  upon  which,  and  the  objects  for 
which,  the  seminary  was  founded.  My  father's  preference 
was  decided  and  often  expressed  for  what  he  conceived  to  be 
the  broader  views  and  more  liberal  instruction  enjoyed  l)y 
the  students  of  Union,  in  comparison  with  those  afforded  the 
students  at  certain  well-known  seminaries  of  the  Church. 
(2)  The  conviction,  also  often  expressed,  that  a  great  city 
offered  superior  advantages  for  the  training  of  young  men 
for  the  Christian  ministry.  His  brother,  Mr.  John  A.  Brown, 
an  old  friend  and  parishioner  of  the  Rev.  Albert  Barnes, 
shared  his  views  on  both  these  points. 

The  details  connected  with  this  gift  of  $300,000,  formed 
the  subject  of  many  conversations  between  my  father  and 
myself.  I  thus  became  intimately  acquainted  with  his  views 
and  the  motives  which  prompted  him,  and  am  able  to  state 
with  confidence,  that  he  was  in  no  way  influenced  by  the 
agreement  of  1870,  as  affording  an  additional  guarantee  of 
the  orthodoxy  of  the  seminary.  In  not  one  of  our  conversa- 
tions was  the  agreement  so  much  as  mentioned ;  nor  is 
there  an  allusion  to  it  in  the  whole  correspondence  now  in 
my  possession  between  my  father  and  the  seminary,  or  be- 
tween him  and  Dr.  Adams,  or  in  his  letters  to  me,  or  in  any 
other  letters  bearing  upon  the  matter. 

It  can  hardly  excite  surprise  that  the  charges  re- 
specting Mr.  James  Brown's  gifts  to  Union  Seminary, 
made  in  Mr.  McCook's  "  Memorandum  "  and  sp)eech  at 
Detroit,  should  have  greatly  displeased  Mr.  Brown's 
family  and  friends.     It  is  only  right,  therefore,  to  quote 


92  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

here  a  statement  by  Mr.  McCook,  made  in  1892,  just 
before  the  adjournment  of  the  Portland  Assembly,  to 
which  he  was  a  commissioner. 

Colonel  Joliii  J.  McCook  made  a  frank  statement,  with- 
drawing any  word  which  might  have  irritated  or  caused  dis- 
tress to  the  family  of  James  Brown,  one  of  the  benefactors 
of  the  Union  Seminary.  He  remarked  that  his  object  in 
referring  to  the  matter,  had  been  to  express  the  view  that, 
whether  the  benefactors  of  the  seminary  intended  to  do  so 
or  not,  or  whether  they  considered  the  legal  propositions  in- 
volved or  not,  their  gifts  having  been  once  delivered  to  the 
seminary,  they  necessarily  come  under  the  trusts  devolved 
by  the  charter,  the  constitution  and  the  contract  obligations 
of  the  seminary,  including  the  compact  of  1870. 

(c )  Organization  of  the  Detroit  Assembly.  The 
Standing  Committee  on  Theological  Seminaries.  Its  re- 
port.    The  speeches  and  the  action  of  the  Assembly. 

The  One  Hundred  and  Third  General  Assembly  of 
the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United  States  of 
America  met  at  Detroit,  Michigan,  in  the  Fort  Street 
Presbyterian  Church,  of  which  the  Kev.  Dr.  Wallace 
Radcliffe  was  pastor,  on  May  21,  1891.  The  Kev.  Dr. 
A¥illiam  Henry  Green,  the  distinguished  professor  of 
Oriental  and  Old  Testament  Literature  at  Princeton, 
was  chosen  Moderator.  Dr.  Green  was  held  in  the 
highest  esteem  and  affection,  all  over  the  land,  as  a  vet- 
eran in  the  service  of  Christian  scholarshijD.  Nothing- 
could  have  been  more  fitting  than  his  unanimous  elec- 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  93 

tion.  The  organization  of  the  Assembly  was  thus  de- 
scribed by  the  correspondent  of  the  New  York  Tribune, 
under  date  of  May  22  : 

This  is  pre-eminently  a  conservative  Assembly ;  more,  it 
is  a  Princeton  Assembly.  The  Moderator  is  a  Princeton 
man,  the  senior  professor  in  that  seminary  ;  the  Stated  Clerk 
is  a  Princeton  man,  having  been  for  a  long  time  librarian 
of  that  institntion  ;  the  chairman  of  the  Standing  Committee 
on  Theological  Seminaries,  Dr.  Patton,  is  president  of  Prince- 
ton College,  and  it  is  to  this  committee  that  the  report  of 
Union  Seminary  is  to  be  submitted.  Friends  and  opponents 
of  Dr.  Briggs  are  already  forming  their  opinions  as  to  what 
action  this  committee  will  report  in  regard  to  the  New  York 
professor. 

Dr.  Green  announced  the  standing  committees  this  morn- 
ing. There  is  no  special  significance  in  the  appointments, 
except  in  that  of  the  Committee  on  Theological  Seminaries. 
This  is  composed  as  follows :  3Iinisters — Francis  L. 
Patton,  Princeton ;  William  McKibbin,  Cincinnati ;  John 
Lapsley,  Danville ;  S.  Bowden,  Rochester ;  J.  D.  Hewitt, 
Emporia;  J.  K.  Wright,  Florida:  T.  R.  Buber,  Philadel- 
phia; and  M.  A.  Bronson,  Detroit.  Elders — S.  M.  Breck- 
inridge, St.  Louis;  P.  McDavitt,  Chicago;  E.  W.  C.  Hum- 
phrey, Louisville ;  R.  C.  Totten,  Pittsburg ;  P.  Doremus, 
Montclair,  N.  J.;  N.  J.  Frick,  Fort  Dodge;  R.  McCon- 
naughy,  Nebraska  City.  It  was  said  by  those  professing  to 
know  that  this  was  a  decidedly  anti-Briggs  committee,  but 
Dr.  Patton,  its  chairman,  assured  the  Tribune  correspondent 
that  he  did  not  know  how  the  members  stood  on  any  spe- 
cial question  that  might  come  before  them.  They  had 
apparently  been  chosen  by  Dr.  Green  because  he  knew  their 
fitness  for  the  work  before  them. 


94  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

Here  are  some  passages  from  a  letter  of  Dr.  Park- 
hurst  to  The  Evangelist^  depicting  the  Assembly  from 
his  point  of  view,  both  as  a  director  of  Union  Sem- 
inary and  as  a  commissioner. 

The  General  Assembly  was  made  up  for  the  most  part 
of  men  that  it  did  one  good  to  look  upon.  It  is  a  splendid 
thing  for  the  country  to  have  such  people  as  an  element  of 
its  population.  They  were  Christian  men  with  good  heads 
and  honest  hearts.  I  am  speaking  of  the  body  in  its 
entirety,  regardless  of  geographical  relations  or  doctrinal 
affiliations.  N'me  out  of  ten  of  that  assemblage  were  anxious 
for  nothing  so  much  as  to  have  the  truth  brought  to  the 
front,  and  the  right  prevail.  ...  I  recognize  the  solid 
sense  of  the  commissioners,  but  there  are  a  great  many  ques- 
tions in  theology,  as  there  are  in  every  other  science,  that 
need  something  beside  solid  sense  in  order  to  handl-e  them 
wisely.  Take  the  matter  of  the  higher  criticism,  which 
was  repeatedly  touched  in  the  course  of  the  debate.  I  doubt 
if  one  in  twenty  of  the  commissioners  at  Detroit  would  have 
dared  to  stand  up  in  the  presence  of  that  company  and 
attempt  to  state  what  the  higher  criticism  is.  Their  one 
impression  seemed  to  be  that  it  was  a  frightful  doctrinal 
disease  of  some  kind,  and  that  Dr.  Briggs  had  it  in  its  most 
malignant  form.  The  General  Assembly  were  frightened; 
I  had  better  say  panic-stricken.  They  had  no  desire  to  be 
rid  of  Union  Seminary,  but  they  were  afraid  of  Dr.  Briggs, 
and  evidently  supposed  that  in  trying  to  exorcise  him  they 
were  saving  the  seminary,  and  expelling  the  one  evil  spirit 
and  foul  demon  by  which  it  seemed  to  them  to  be  possessed. 
I  have  thus  far  spoken  about  the  nine  out  of  every  ten.  I 
want  now  to  ])ay  my  respects  in  the  same  frank  way  to  the 
tenth    man   out    of   every  ten.      If  ninety    })er    cent,    of  the 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  95 

members  were  sheep  waiting  to  be  led,  ten  per  cent,  were 
bell-wether  waiting  to  lead  them,  and  Princeton  was  that 
bell-wether. 

Before  noticing  the  report  of  the  Standing  Commit- 
tee on  Theological  Seminaries  it  will  not  be  out  of 
place  to  say  a  word  of  its  chairman.  The  Moderator 
and  his  fchief  adviser  knew  very  well  what  they  did. 
Dr.  Patton  was  by  far  the  strongest  man  for  that  position 
in  view  of  the  object  to  be  accomplished.  No  other 
commissioner  could  have  filled  his  place.  He  was  the 
ruling  spirit  at  once  of  the  Assembly  and  of  the  Com- 
mittee. It  is  only  fair,  therefore,  to  quote  a  passage 
from  Dr.  McKibbin's  speech,  made  in  defence  of  the 
report.  In  view  of  his  relation  to  Princeton,  Dr.  Pat- 
ton  was  somewhat  sharply  criticised  at  the  time  for 
consenting  to  serve  on  the  committee.  I  myself  joined 
in  this  criticism.  But  I  am  bound  to  say,  that  for  its 
recognition  as  a  party  in  the  case,  with  equal  rights  of 
its  own  over  against  the  Assembly,  Union  Seminary 
was  chiefly  indebted  to  Dr.  Patton.  Here  is  the  pas- 
sage in  Dr.  McKibbin's  speech  : 

Now  I  am  going  to  tell  you  some  secrets  out  of  school. 
The  chairman  seemed  to  be  hunting  so  hard  for  some  way 
to  peaceably  settle  this  thing,  that  I  began  to  find  my  own 
faith  in  him  weakening.  So  far  from  shutting  his  eyes  and 
ears — and  I  know  you  recognize  his  master-hand  in  that 
report — it  seemed  to  me  that  he  was  bound  to  get  through 
the  inclosure  if  there  was  a  hole  anywhere  in  the  fence  big 
enough  to  let   him   through,  before   he   would  consent  to  say 


96  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

to  this  Assembly,  as  he   has   solemnly  said,  and  we  all  say, 
there  is  no  other  way,  because  there  is  no  other  duty. 

On  May  27th  Dr.  Patton  read  the  report  of  the  com- 
mittee, which  was  accepted  and  ordered  to  be  printed. 
The  report  opened  with  an  enumeration  of  sixty-three 
Presbyteries  which  had  overtured  the  General  Assem- 
bly respecting  the  recent  utterances  of  Dr.  Briggs.  It 
also  referred  to  the  report  of  the  directors  of  Union 
Theological  Seminary  respecting  the  transfer  of  Dr. 
Briggs  to  the  chair  of  Biblical  Theology.  The  report 
then  proceeds  thus  : 

On  the  20th  of  January,  1891,  Dr.  Briggs  delivered 
an  inaugural  address  on  the  authority  of  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures which  has  been  the  subject  of  some  criticism,  and 
which  is  the  occasion  of  the  recommendations  which  your 
committee  feel  constrained  to  make  to  the  Assembly.  In 
making  these  recommendations  your  committee  feel  that  they 
are  acting  in  the  discharge  of  a  delicate  duty.  The  matter 
with  which  they  have  been  called  to  deal  bears  in  a  very 
important  way  upon  the  purity  and  peace  of  our  Church. 
The  interest  of  the  Union  Theological  Seminary  should  be 
most  carefully  considered,  and  great  respect  should  be  had 
for  the  judgment  of  those  who,  as  directors  and  as  members 
of  its  faculty,  are  administering  its  aifairs.  The  committee 
feel,  moreover,  that  while  the  Assembly  has  not  been 
officially  informed,  the  Presbytery  of  New  York  has  taken 
steps  that  look  toward  a  prosecution  of  Dr.  Briggs  on  the 
charge  of  heresy ;  that  well-known  facts  should  be  so  far 
recognized  as  to  secure  from  the  Assembly  the  protection  of 
the  good  name  of  Dr.  Briggs  in  the  discussion  of  the  ques- 


ANOTHER   DECADE    OF  ITS  HISTORY.  97 

tion  that  will  come  before  the  Assembly  through  this  report, 
and  also  to  prevent  an  expression  of  opinion  on  the  part  of 
this  Assembly  that  could  be  justly  regarded  as  prejudgment 
of  the  case  that  will  soon,  as  it  now  appears,  assume  the 
form  of  a  judicial  process  in  the  Presbytery  of  New  York. 
It  cannot  be  too  carefully  observed  tliat  the  question  before 
this  Assembly  is  not  whether  Dr.  Briggs,  as  a  Presbyterian 
minister,  has  so  far  contravened  the  teaching  of  the  West- 
minster Confession  of  Faith  as  to  have  made  himself  liable  to 
a  judicial  censure,  but  whether,  in  view  of  the  utterances 
contained  in  the  inaugural  address,  already  referred  to,  and 
the  disturbing  effect  which  they  have  produced  throughout 
the  Church,  the  election  of  Dr.  Briggs  to  the  chair  of 
Biblical  Theology  in  Union  Theological  Seminary  should  be 
disapproved.  Your  committee  have  examined  the  law  of 
the  Church  regarding  the  relation  of  the  General  Assembly 
to  the  theological  seminaries  under  its  care.  The  relation 
of  the  Assembly  to  the  Union  Theological  Seminary,  so  far 
as  the  appointment  of  professors  is  concerned,  is  embodied 
in  the  following  statement  taken  from  page  390  of  the  New 
Digest. 

Having  cited  the  statement  referred  to,  the  report 
continued  as  follows : 

It  appears,  then,  that  according  to  the  items  of  the  com- 
pact quoted  above,  the  directors  of  the  Union  Theological 
Seminary  have  conceded  to  the  Assembly  the  right  to  veto 
the  appointment  of  professors,  and  that  an  election  is  com- 
plete unless  vetoed  by  the  next  Assembly  following  the 
election.  Your  committee  would  have  been  disposed  to  rec- 
ommend that  the  report  of  the  directors  of  Union  Theolog- 
ical Seminary  to  this  Assembly,  so  far  as  it   referred   to   the 


98  THE    UNION  THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

transfer  of  Dr.  Briggs  to  the  chair  of  Biblical  Theology,  be 
referred  to  the  next  Assembly,  if  such  a  disposition  of  the 
matter  had  been  possible  ;  but  the  Assembly  has  clearly  no 
power  to  postpone  action.  The  control  of  the  Church  over 
the  election  of  Dr.  Briggs  ceases  with  the  dissolution  of  this 
present  Assembly.  Your  committee  are  constrained,  there- 
fore, to  say  that  in  their  judgment  it  is  the  duty  of  the 
Assembly  to  disapprove  of  the  appointment  of  Dr.  Briggs 
to  the  Edward  Robinson  chair  of  Biblical  Theology  in  Union 
Theological  Seminary. 

Your  committee  desire  to  say,  moreover,  that  while  they 
are  clear  in  their  judgment  that  the  Assembly  has  the  right 
to  veto  the  appointment  of  Dr.  Briggs  to  the  chair  of  Biblical 
Theology,  it  is  possible  to  impose  a  meaning  upon  the  appa- 
rently unambiguous  phraseology  of  the  compact  between  the 
General  Assembly  and  the  directors  of  the  Union  Theological 
Seminary,  that  would  lead  to  a  different  conclusion.  Fairness 
also  requires  us  to  say  that  the  Assembly  is  one  of  the 
parties  of  the  compact  that  it  is  called  upon  to  construe. 
AYhile  your  committee  are  of  the  opinion  that  the  compact 
in  question  did  not  contemplate  the  distinction  between  the 
election  of  a  person  to  be  a  professor  and  the  appointment 
of  one  already  a  professor  to  the  Avork  of  a  certain  depart- 
ment of  instruction,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  such  a  dis- 
tinction exists  ;  the  one  act  conferring  status,  the  other  only 
assigning  duties.  The  seemingly  irregular  course  of  the 
directors  of  the  Union  Theological  Seminary,  whereby  Dr. 
Briggs  was  inducted  into  office  before  the  Assembly  had 
been  advised  of  his  appointment,  is  doubtless  to  be  attributed 
to  their  mode  of  construing  their  contract  with  tlie  General 
Assembly.  While  your  committee  are  sure  that  the  Assem- 
bly will  not,  and  should  not,  admit  its  right  of  disapproval 
is  restricted  to  the   original   election   of  a   person  to  a  pro- 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  99 

fessorship  of  Biblical  Theology  in  that  seminary,  and  while 
they  are  of  the  opinion  that,  acting  according  to  the  light 
it  now  has,  the  Assembly  cannot  but  disapprove  of  the  ap- 
pointment of  Dr.  Briggs  to  the  professorship  of  Biblical 
Theology  in  that  seminary,  they  are  nevertheless  of  the  opin- 
ion that,  in  the  interest  of  the  mutual  relations  of  confidence 
and  cordial  respect  subsisting  between  the  Union  Theological 
Seminary  and  the  General  Assembly,  it  would  be  eminently 
proper  for  the  Assembly  to  appoint  a  committee  to  confer 
with  the  directors  of  the  Union  Theological  Seminary  in 
regard  to  the  relations  of  said  seminary  to  the  General 
Assembly,  and  report  to  the  next  General  Assembly.  The 
committee,  therefore,  recommend  the  adoption  of  the  follow- 
ing resolutions : 

I.  Besolved,  That  in  the  exercise  of  its  right  to  veto 
the  appointment  of  professors  in  Union  Theological  Seminary 
the  General  Assembly  hereby  disapproves  of  the  appointment 
of  the  Bev.  Charles  A.  Briggs,  D.  D.,  to  the  Edward  Rob- 
inson professorship  of  Biblical  Theology  in  that  seminary, 
by  transfer  from  another  chair  in   said  seminary. 

II.  Resolved,  That  a  committee,  consisting  of  eight  min- 
isters and  seven  ruling  elders,  be  appointed  by  the  General 
Assembly  to  confer  with  the  directors  of  Union  Theological 
Seminary  in  regard  to  the  relations  of  said  seminary  to  the 
General  Assembly,  and  to  report  to  the  next  General  Assem- 
bly. 

Before  considering  the  report  of  the  committee  I 
wish  to  call  attention  to  a  statement  of  the  chairman 
on  reading  it : 

I  would  like  to  say  that  this  committee  have  felt  the 
responsibility    that   has   been   placed    upon   them ;    that    they 


100  THE   UNION  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

have  not  felt  at  liberty  to  divide  this  responsibility  with  any 
one  ;  that  they  have  studiously  avoided  consulting  with  any 
one  who  may  have  been  supposed  to  have  preconceived  opin- 
ions on  either  side  of  the  question  ;  and  having  reached  our 
conclusions,  we  present  them  to  the  Assembly  for  such  action 
as  the  Assembly  in  its  wisdom  may  see  fit  to  take. 

Was  this  not  equivalent  to  saying  that  they  delib- 
erately refused  to  seek,  or  to  receive,  any  light  from 
anybody  in  reference  to  the  momentous  question  which 
they  were  appointed  to  consider  ?  Were  these  fifteen 
commissioners  already  omniscient  when  they  shut 
themselves  up  in  committee?  Would  their  minds 
henceforth  of  necessity  be  biassed,  or  misled,  by  any 
addition  to  their  knowledge  touching  the  Union  Semi- 
nary and  Dr.  Briggs  ?  I  say  nothing  about  the  other 
"  side ;"  but  so  far  as  the  Union  Seminary  was  con- 
cerned, it  had  good  right  to  be  heard  before  that  com- 
mittee, if  it  desired  or  cared  to  do  so.  Three  of  its 
directors,  Drs.  Parkhurst,  Dickey  and  White,  w^ere 
present  in  the  Assembly,  the  first  two  as  commission- 
ers, Dr.  White  as  Corresponding  Member.  Dr.  Dickey 
stated  that  he  offered,  as  a  member  of  the  Union  Board 
of  Directors,  to  give  the  committee  any  information  in 
his  power ;  not  "  preconceived  opinions,"  but  simple 
information.  Dr.  White  made  the  same  offer,  both 
orally  and  in  writing,  and  he  was  assured  by  Dr. 
Patton  that  the  committee  would  be  glad  to  hear  him. 
He  fully  expected  to  be  heard  ;  but  the  committee 
"studiously  avoided "  consulting  with  him.      In  the 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  IQl 

letter  to  Dr.  Field,  already  quoted,  Dr.  Parkhurst  thus 
referred  to  the  course  of  the  committee : 

There  were  three  of  the  directors  of  Union  Seminary- 
present  in  the  Assembly,  and  we  naturally  supposed  that 
the  committee  would  like  to  have  the  light  turned  on,  and 
that  they  would  be  pleased  to  confer  with  us  before  bring- 
ing in  their  verdict.  Such  simplicity  on  our  part  may  be 
pitiable,  but  it  is  hardly  censurable.  Two  out  of  these 
three  even  went  so  far  as  to  volunteer  their  services,  and  to 
suggest  to  Dr.  Patton's  committee  that  we  should  be  willing 
and  glad  to  come  before  them,  and  state  any  facts  that  they 
might  wish  to  question  us  upon.  They  met  our  overtures 
so  far  as  to  say  that  they  should  be  glad  to  hear  anything 
that  we  would  connnunicate.  One  of  us  in  particular  was 
informed  that  such  citation  would  be  made.  Nothing  came 
of  it.  Not  one  of  us  ivas  sent  for.  All  of  which  means 
that  that  committee  was  constructed  with  the  definite  purpose 
of  vetoing  Dr.  Briggs'  transfer. 

But  this  slight  put  upon  the  three  directors  of  Union 
Seminary  was  only  a  prelude  to  a  far  greater  slight 
put  upon  the  seminary  itself.  It  is  true  that  the  report 
of  the  committee  distinctly  recognized  the  fact  that 
Union  Seminary  was  a  party  in  the  case  and  had  rights 
of  its  own  as  over  against  the  Assembly.  And  yet  the 
report  recommended  an  ex  parte  decision  of  the  vital 
question  at  issue  without  consulting  in  the  least  Union 
Seminary.  The  consultation  was  to  come  after  the 
matter  had  been  practically,  and  so  far  as  that  Assem- 
bly was  concerned,  irrevocably  settled. 


102  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

The  exposition  of  the  case  in  the  report,  more  fully- 
given  in  Dr.  Patton's  speeches  and  in  those  of  other 
members  of  the  committee,  was  remarkable  for  the 
manner  in  which  it  utterly  ignored  the  deliberate  action 
and  testimony  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of  Union  Sem- 
inary, as  also  the  carefully  prepared  statement  of  its 
faculty.  These  were  not,  it  is  true,  officially  made 
known  to  the  Assembly,  but  neither  was  the  action  of 
the  Presbytery  of  New  York,  looking  to  a  judicial  pro- 
cess in  the  case  of  Dr.  Briggs ;  and  yet  the  Standing 
Committee  on  Theological  Seminaries  kept  that  action 
constantly  in  mind  in  framing  their  report  and  iiryed 
the  Assembly  to  do  so  in  considering  it.  Why  was  not 
the  Assembly  also  informed  in  this  report  of  the  exact 
position  taken  both  by  the  Board  of  Directors  and  by 
the  faculty  of  the  seminary  ?  AVhy  was  not  the  Assem- 
bly distinctly  told  that  the  board,  by  a  unanimous  vote 
and  after  careful  investigation,  had  virtually  pronounced 
the  charges  against  Dr.  Briggs  unfounded,  and  that  the 
faculty  of  the  institution  had  done  the  same  thing? 
Was  this  solemn  testimony  also  "studiously  avoided" 
on  the  ground  that  it  consisted  of  "  preconceived  opin- 
ions "  ?  * 

Let  me  rejDcat  the  language  of  Dr.  Patton's  report : 
"The  interest  of  the  Union  Theological  Seminary 
should  be  most  carefully  considered,  and  great  respect 

*The  action  of  tlie  board  in  establishing  tlie  new  cliair  and  transferring 
Dr.  Briggs  to  it,  Dr.  Frazer's  cliarge,  the  resolutions  of  the  Board  of  Directors 
sustaining  and  promising  to  stand  by  Dr.  Briggs,  and  also  the  statement  of  the 
faculty  will  all  be  found  in  the  Appendix. 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  103 

should  he  had  for  the  judgment  of  those  who,  as  direc- 
tors and  as  members  of  the  faculty,  are  administering 
its  affairs.  The  committee  feel,  moreover,  that  while 
the  Assembly  has  not  been  officially  informed,  the 
Presbytery  of  New  York  has  taken  steps  that  look 
toward  a  prosecution  of  Dr.  Briggs  on  the  charge  of 
heresy  ;  that  ivell-hnown  facts  should  be  so  far  recog- 
nized as  to  secure  from  the  Assembly  the  protection  of 
the  good  name  of  Dr.  Briggs  in  the  discussion  of  the 
question  that  will  come  before  the  Assembly  through 
this  report."  Why,  I  repeat,  was  not  the  Assembly 
informed  of  "well-known  facts"  in  the  case  of  Union 
Seminary  though  not  "officially  reported"  ? 

The  debate  upon  the  report  of  the  Standing  Commit- 
tee on  Theological  Seminaries  opened  on  May  28th  and 
closed  late  on  May  29th.  Much  of  the  discussion, 
while  able  and  very  earnest,  was  yet  quite  irrelevant. 
A  good  deal  of  it  consisted  in  what  is  called  beating 
about  the  bush.  The  first  and  fundamental  point, 
namely,  that  of  jurisdiction,  was  hardly  touched  upon 
except  in  the  report  of  the  committee. 

AVith  regard  to  this  question  the  friends  of  the 
seminary  were  handicapped  and  tongue-tied  from  the 
outset.  Their  case  was  simply  given  away  by  the 
statement  that  the  technical  distinction,  if  any  existed, 
between  an  original  appointment  and  a  transfer,  need 
not  be  discussed,  inasmuch  as  the  directors  of  Union 
Seminary,  at  their  meeting  on  IMay  12th,  had  uiiani- 
mously   voted  not   to  plead  this  distinction.      At   that 


104  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

meeting  the  Executive  Committe  had  presented  to  the 
board  a  rejDort  to  the  effect  that  it  would  be  unwise  to 
assume  in  advance  that  the  General  Asembly  would 
misconceive  the  extent  of  its  i^rerogative ;  and  in  any 
event  it  was  better  at  this  time  not  to  raise  an  issue  by 
the  sending  up  of  a  resolution  upon  the  distinction  be- 
tween an  "appointment"  and  a  "  transfer."  As  the  mis- 
statement about  the  action  of  the  board,  stranselv 
enough,  met  with  no  contradiction,  the  friends  of  the 
seminary  had  nothing  to  do  but  to  oppose  the  adop- 
tion of  Dr.  Patton's  report  as  best  they  could.  Some 
of  them  did  this  directly  ;  others  by  urging  an  amend- 
ment offered  by  Dr.  Logan,  to  the  effect  that  Dr. 
Briggs'  transfer  be  disapproved  "for  the  present;" 
and  others  still  by  advocating  a  substitute  to  Dr. 
Logan's  amendment  prepared  by  Dr.  Worcester ; 
both  of  which  contemjDlated  the  postponement  of  final 
action  to  the  next  Assembly.  But  the  distinction 
between  the  original  election  and  a  transfer,  having 
been  waived,  the  advocates  of  a  veto  had  it  all  their 
own  way.  And  their  own  way  consisted  in  two  things ; 
first,  to  assert  very  i^ositively  that  Dr.  Briggs  ought  to 
be  vetoed ;  and  second,  that  he  must  be  vetoed  now  or 
never. 

The  discussion,  as  I  have  said,  was  able  and  very 
earnest ;  and  now  that  the  excitement  of  the  hour  is  all 
gone,  much  of  it  is  full  of  interest  and  instruction. 
Some  of  the  speeches  have  a  historical  value  as  photo- 
graphs of  the  thoughts  and  impressions  that  ruled  the 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  105 

Assembly  of  1891.  I  will'  quote  from  a  few  of  them. 
The  opening  speech  was  made  by  Professor  Henry 
Preserved  Smith,  of  Lane  Seminary.  It  discussed 
mainly  Dr.  Briggs'  theological  position  and  character, 
defending  him  with  much  scholarly  ability  and  in  an 
excellent  spirit.  Among  the  liveliest  speeches  was 
one  by  Dr.  Bartlett,  of  Washington.  Here  are  pas- 
sages from  it : 

If  there  is  any  way  in  wliich  all  parties  could  be  con- 
sidered, and  in  wliicli  the  unity  and  harmony  of  this  great 
Presbyterian  Church  could  be  preserved,  I  am  certain  there 
are  no  two  purposes  about  the  advisability  of  doing  just  that 
thing.  Now  we  are  here  as  a  company  of  Christian  be- 
lievers. I  am  in  favor  of  the  immediate  action  on  this 
report,  if  action  must  be  taken — and  I  don't  say  that  we 
should  veto  this  appointment  "for  the  present."  The  im- 
putation always  is  by  men  who  argue  for  the  higher  criti- 
cism, that  every  Presbyterian  minister  is  a  fool,  and  that 
nobody  ever  read  the  Bible  or  had  any  private  secret  reve- 
lations but  themselves.  (Laughter.)  I  wisli  to  say  that 
over  thirty  years  ago  I  was  in  the  German  universities,  and 
I  can  take  Dr.  Bribe's'  books  and  do  for  them  with  absolute 
certainty  what  he  guessed  at  with  Moses,  and  can  show  him 
where  he  took  every  one  of  his  positions  from  a  rationalist 
German  professor  over  thirty  years  ago  ;  and  I  am  prepared 
here  to  vindicate  that  statement.  (Applause.)  Now,  gen- 
tlemen, there  is  scholarship  and  there  is  scholarship.  No 
one  ever  doubted  but  what  Strauss  was  a  scholar.  He  is 
not  a  very  learned  man,  and  he  began  his  career  by  tearing 
Moses  to  pieces,  and  he  ended  by  stripping  Christ  of  every- 
thing  but    being  a  plain  Nazarene    peasant.        Yes,  there   is 


106  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

scholarship  and  scholarship.  Why,  Ignatius  Donnelly  is  a 
scholar.  He  has  marvellous  secrets  that  nobody  else  has 
ever  pried  into.  And  right  here  I  wish  to  say  as  to  these 
intimations — in  all  these  addresses  that  I  have  heard  on  the 
higher  scholarship — about  the  marvellous  teachings  they  are 
gabbing  about,  the  wonderful  things  that  they  see  which 
nobody  else  has  ever  explored — why,  gentlemen,  you  could 
talk  that  a  thousand  years  and  back  to  peasants,  but  that  is 
the  charlatanism  of  scholarship  to-day.  I  tell  you,  we  know 
every  fact  that  any  man  knows  on  higher  criticism  or  any- 
thing else.  There  is  water  in  the  sea,  there  is  water  in  the 
air  and  there  is  water  in  the  rivers;  but  they  are  in  com- 
munication with  each  other.  Now,  bring  out  your  facts. 
The  truth  of  it  is  that  there  are  some  peculiar  minds  in 
every  age  that  look  upon  a  class  of  facts  that  are  perfectly 
familiar  to  Christian  scholars,  and  they  see  in  them  the 
solution  of  great,  doubtful  and  perplexed  problems,  which 
the  great  average  level-headed  scholarship  of  the  day  doesn't 
see.  They  have  the  same  state  of  facts,  but  they  differ  in 
their  interpretation.  For  instance,  there  are  seven  or  eight 
hundred  theories  as  to  the  origin  of  the  Pentateuch.  Now, 
I,  the  great  level-headed  scholar,  look  over  them,  and  I 
state  what  I  see,  and  I  say  it  raises  great  doubt  in  my 
mind.  And  so  the  great  scholar  gives  his  students  all  the 
information  he  has  upon  it ;  brings  it  from  the  depths  and 
puts  it  before  them.  Now,  I  say,  state  it,  bring  it  before 
the  students,  keep  nothing  back,  they  are  entitled  to  it. 
But  they  are  entitled  as  well  not  to  have  a  man  with  a 
peculiar  tendency  of  mind  and  a  peculiar  mental  symj)athy 
fix  the  stamp  of  his  authority  on  some  one  of  those  theories 
and  say  that,  if  he  knows  anything  about  Moses,  Moses  did 
not  write  the  Pentateuch.  Now,  that  is  what  I  complain 
of.      The    higher    criticism    doubt    has   proved    that    Bacon 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  107 

wrote  Shakespeare.  In  the  Oxford  investigations  as  to  the 
origin  of  Homer  they  proved,  I  believe,  that  Homer  did  not 
write  Homer,  but  that  Homer  was  really  written  by  another 
man  of  the  same  name.     (Laughter.) 

A  member — "  I  rise  to  a  question  of  order,  Mr.  Moderator." 

Dr.  Bartlett — Well,  rise — and  sit  down  again.  You  have 
had  your  time  on  this  thing,  and  I  propose  to  have  mine. 
(Cries  of  "  Order,"  "  Order.") 

A  member — "I  rise  to  a  question  of  order." 

Dr.  Bartlett — Yes,  this  is  the  form  of  liberty  accorded. 
In  the  name  of  liberty  men  often  become  bigots.  They 
never  dare  to  hear  the  truth. 

A  member — "  I  wish  the  chair  would  decide  upon  my 
question  of  order,  whether  the  position  of  Homer  and  of 
Ignatius  Donnelly  has  anything  to  do  with  the  amendment 
before  the  house." 

Dr.  Bartlett — It  is  an  illustration.  (Laughter.)  I  was 
going  to  move  a  committee,  consisting  of  Donnelly  and 
Keely  and  Briggs  and  half  a  dozen  others,  to  settle  all 
questions  of  modern  times.  (Laughter.)  I  wish  further  to 
say  a  word  about  scholarship.  The  impression  is  always 
made  that  we  don't  want  light.  We  say  let  the  light  in. 
The  Presbyterian  Church  seeks  scholars,  but  it  does  not  on 
insufficient  evidence  ask  men  to  draw  inferences  and  shatter 
the  very  foundations  of  faith. 

And  now  in  regard  to  heresy.  This  is  not  an  age  of 
heresy-hunting.  Why,  there  is  no  such  thing  in  the  air. 
The  response  that  the  Presbyterian  Church  officially  has 
made  to  ten  years  of  heresy-hunting  is  seen  this  morning  in 
the  report  of  this  committee.  The  heretic  has  hunted  the 
Church,  and  not  the  Church  the  heretic,  if  there  is  any 
heresy.  For  ten  long  years  in  book  after  book,  periodical 
after   periodical — culminating   in   the   inaugural   address— the 


108  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

Presbyterian  Church  has  been  pursued.  The  man  has 
rubbed  against  it  with  chips  on  his  shoulder,  defying  it  in 
every  way.  Now,  I  say  that  even  a  fire  company  has  a 
right  to  have  rules.  Their  rule  is  that  their  members  shall 
wear  red  shirts.  A  fellow  comes  in  with  a  blue  shirt,  and 
says  he  is  going  to  wear  it.  Of  course  it  is  a  small  matter 
what  color  their  shirts  shall  be,  but  their  rule  is  that  only 
red  shirts  shall  be  worn.  Now,  I  say  that  any  society  has 
a  right  to  have  some  defined  rules,  and  after  a  Church  has 
been  pursued  for  more  than  ten  years  on  this  question,  I 
say  it  is  to  be  commended  for  long-suifering  patience  and 
for  tender  mercy  and  for  quietness  and  peace.  The  impli- 
cation has  always  been  that  there  is  heresy  being  sought ; 
that  this  is  an  age  of  thumbscrews  and  all  that  species  of 
humbug.  In  this  case  it  does  not  apply.  Every  Church 
is  free,  but  the  Church  must  be  free  enough  to  decide  the 
question  independently  and  fairly.  I  like  Professor  Smith's 
dog  story.  It  was  a  good  one,  and  it  reminded  me  of  one 
that  I  will  tell  you.  We  had  a  bench  show  in  Washington 
this  winter  and  there  w^ere  several  $3,000  and  $4,000  and 
I  believe  one  $5,000  dog  exhibited  there.  One  day  this 
$5,000  dog  got  out.  He  was  a  rather  ferocious  fellow, 
though  very  expensive,  and  ruuning  down  the  street  he 
seized  one  of  my  fellow-citizens  in  a  convenient  place  in  the 
back  (laughter,)  and  his  owner,  who  was  chasing  him,  cried 
out  to  the  citizen  who  had  been  seized  :  "  Don't  injure  that 
dog,  you  might  spoil  him,  and  he  is  a  very  valuable  dog" 
— and  all  the  while  the  dog  was  gnawing  away,  and  the 
poor  man  had  the  impression  that  he  was  not  in  any  great 
danger  of  injuring  the  dog,  but  that  the  dog  was  in  great 
danger  of  injuring  him.  And  so  it  is.  We  have  been 
pursued  and  finally  caught,  and  we  wish  for  them  to  make 
the  apology.      Who   has   made   this   disturbance  ?     Is    it   the 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  109 

Presbyterian  Church,  through  spies  and  queer  and  double 
construction  chasing  a  man  down  to  convict  him  of  heresy  ? 
The  Church  is  forced  to  regard  it,  and  we  simj)ly  say  :  Let 
go.  Let  us  alone.  And  if  the  time  has  come  when  you 
must  go  out  from  the  beautiful  land  of  Egypt  under  the 
repression  of  this  awful  Pharaoh — the  Presbyterian  Church 
— we  say,  go,  and  take  all  your  intimate  friends  with  you. 
(Laughter  and  applause.)  There  is  the  end  of  the  matter. 
We  must  face  it  fairly.  There  is  no  personal  thing  about 
it.  We  have  talked  of  trying  to  save  Professor  Briggs.  I 
know  him,  and  I  love  him  personally,  as  a  man.  But 
there  is  a  question  about  saving  the  seminary  and  about 
saving  the  Church  of  God.  The  physician,  when  he  came 
out  from  the  sick  chamber,  said  the  mother  was  dead,  and 
the  child  was  dead,  but  he  thought  he  might  possibly  save 
the  husband.  (Laughter.)  I  think  it  is  about  time  for  us  to 
save  the  Church. 

In  kindness  my  heart  responds  to  every  kindly  feeling. 
I  was  a  Union  Seminary  man.  I  was  there  under  that 
grand  scholar  whose  fame  is  over  the  earth,  Edward  Robin- 
son. I  was  under  the  scholarship  and  careful  training  of 
Henry  B.  Smith.  I  was  under  the  superb  rhetorician, 
Hitchcock,  and  I  was  there  under  that  Chesterfield  of  a 
teacher,  old  Dr.  Skinner,  so  sweet  in  his  exterior  and  a  St. 
John  at  his  soul.  In  that  elder  day  to  be  a  Poman  was 
greater  than  to  be  a  king.  I  confess  I  have  stood  all 
my  life  in  the  advance  line.  I  have  been  a  radical  of  the 
radicals,  but  I  drew  the  line  when  I  have  known  the  qual- 
ity of  this  criticism  for  over  thirty  years — and  I  got  it  fresh 
from  Germany,  too — I  know  its  tendency,  and  I  know  where 
it  leads.  Give  us  the  learning,  give  us  the  study  of  the 
books,  give  us  professors  that  know  how  to  handle  it.  The 
implication  always  is  that  it  is  never  studied  in  any  other  semi- 


110  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

nary  but  New  York  ;  but  I  believe  it  is  studied  in  every  theolog- 
ical seminary  of  the  earth,  and  I  believe  that  in  them  all  to-day 
these  things  are  current  facts.  Bring  them  to  their  natural 
result,  and  then  let  the  students  find  that  the  subordinate 
things  are  relegated  to  the  rear,  that  we  are  not  ordained  to 
discover  whether  Moses  A\Tote  the  Pentateuch  or  not,  but  to 
preach  Christ. 

Dr.  Israel  W.  Hathaway,  of  Jersey  City,  opened  the 
discussion  on  the  29th  of  May.  Here  follow  some 
passages  from  his  strong  speech  in  favor  of  Dr. 
Logan's   amendment : 

It  is  one  of  the  glories  of  our  Presbyterian  Church 
that  every  minister,  elder  and  brother  is  to  do  his  own 
thinking.  Notwithstanding  my  regard  for  these  brethren  in 
high  places,  yet  I  must  in  duty  to  my  own  conscience  and 
to  the  Presbytery  which  I  represent  here,  do  my  omii  think- 
ing. We  have  seen  here  the  master-strokes  of  the  great 
giants  of  debate ;  but  nevertheless  I  in  my  humble  place 
have  the  temerity  to  controvert  their  conclusions.  This 
beautiful  argument,  so  finely  drawn  by  Dr.  Patton,  is  build- 
ed  upon  the  supposition  that  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  post- 
pone this  action.  Dr.  Patton  said  here  yesterday  in  our 
hearing  that  he  wished  it  Avere  possible,  that  we  all  would 
love  to  postpone  this  action  if  it  were  possible.  Noav,  I 
claim  that  it  is  not  in  the  precedents  of  the  ecclesiastical 
courts  of  our  Church,  in  interpreting  the  law,  to  give  that 
construction  to  the  technical  interpretation  of  the  law  as  it 
is  given  in  the  civil  courts.  It  has  never  been  the  custom 
of  the  Presbyterian  Church  so  to  do.  I  Avill  admit  that 
technically  they  are  right,  but  that  is  the  letter  that  killeth, 
while  the  spirit  giveth   life.      And   it  will  be  a  sad  day  for 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  m 

the  Presbyterian  Church  when  we  allow  the  technicalities  of 
the  law  to  defeat  justice.  It  is  that  justice  may  prevail, 
and  not  that  we  may  use  technicality  in  order  to  defeat 
justice,  that  our  ecclesiastical  courts  are  constituted. 

It  is  upon  this  point  now  that  I  make  my  argument  that 
it  is  in  the  precedents  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  to  inter- 
pret this  in  the  spirit  and  not  in  the  letter.  And  I  say 
that  on  that  supposition  and  upon  that  fact  all  the  argument 
of  Dr.  Patton  topples  to  the  ground.  He  admits  it  himself 
if  we  can  maintain  this  point.  And  now,  brethren,  I  ask 
you  to  note  for  a  moment  the  form  of  that  report.  There 
is  no  reason  given.  Dr.  Patton  tells  us  that  the  reason 
why  there  are  no  reasons  given  is  that  it  would  be  unjust, 
that  it  would  be  unfair,  that  it  would  prejudice  the  case 
before  the  New  York  Presbytery.  Well,  now,  I  ask  you 
in  all  candor — for  I  have  the  utmost  confidence  in  the  judg- 
ment and  the  scholarship  of  all  the  members  of  this  body, 
and  in  their  ability  to  think  for  themselves — I  ask  you, 
brethren,  whether  you  have  carefully  noted  what  the  ulti- 
mate efTect  of  this  position  is  ?  Why,  sir,  who  ever  heard 
of  a  man  being  condemned  without  a  reason  given  ?  And 
this  report  is  thus  drawn  without  reason.  It  seems  to  me, 
whether  in  the  intent  of  the  committee  or  not,  it  is  a  fact 
that  its  effect  will  be  to  catch  all  possible  votes,  that  you 
may  read  into  it  all  the  reasons  that  you  choose.  The  very 
widest  opportunity  is  given  for  every  member  to  have  his 
own  reason.  Some  of  our  brethren  who  will  vote  to  sustain 
this  report  will  so  vote  because  they  feel  that  Dr.  Briggs  is 
heretical.  Others  of  you  will  vote  to  sustain  this  report 
because  you  feel  that  the  infelicities  of  his  manner  and  his 
idiosyncrasies  incapacitate  him  for  his  position.  One  will 
vote  upon  one  ground  and  another  will  vote  upon  another, 
because  there  are  no  reasons  given. 


112  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

And  now  one  Avord  as  to  the  unfairness  of  all  that. 
Why,  I  had  rather  meet  a  thousand  foes  with  square 
reasons  given  than  an  inference.  If  there  be  any  unfair- 
ness in  putting  the  reasons  in,  there  is  an  hundredfold  more 
unfairness  in  leaving  the  reasons  out,  because  then  it  is 
open  to  all  manner  of  construction. 

And  then  Dr.  Patton,  in  your  hearing,  after  saying  it 
would  be  unfair  and  unjust,  proceeded  to  give  us  the 
reasons  in  part,  and  said  that  there  were  many  others  lying 
back,  opening  the  field  for  our  imagination  to  play  in  its 
largest  scope.  Now  I  ask  you  furthermore,  what  will  be 
lost  by  postponing  this  for  a  year?  Where  is  the  danger? 
Why,  it  is  said  here  that  the  Church  is  being  run  down. 
Our  brother  from  Washington  yesterday  drew  his  illustration 
of  the  dog,  you  remember.  Why,  if  the  great  Presbyterian 
Church  of  America  is  likely  to  be  destroyed  by  this  man, 
then  how  much  is  it  worth  ?  The  danger,  dear  friends,  is 
on  the  other  side.  How  long  has  this  beloved  brother  been 
a  professor  in  this  seminary  ?  He  has  been  teaching 
the  same  things  that  he  will  teach  to-day,  and  has  the 
Church  been  ruined  thereby?  Can  we  not  aiford  to  Avait 
one  more  year  ?  And  I  am  sure,  brethren,  that  our  brother, 
by  reason  of  the  warning  and  by  feeling  the  pulse  of 
the  Church  will  adjust  himself  to  the  conditions,  if  time  be 
given. 

Dr.  Patton  says,  "  Have  we  not  the  right  ?"  I  concede 
the  right.  Shylock  had  the  right  to  have  the  pound  of 
flesh.  So  has  this  Assembly  the  right  to  veto  and  destroy 
the  usefulness  forever  of  that  brother,  and  perhaps  lose  the 
Union  Seminary  to  our  beloved  Church.  Dr.  Patton  him- 
self intimated  that  it  might  go  into  the  civil  courts,  that  it 
might  take  its  course  through  all  the  courts  and  vex  our 
Church  for  years.      And  this  action  that  it  is   proposed  to 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  II3 

take  is  the  very  thing  that  will  precipitate  that  result. 
But  let  us  not  claim  the  pound  of  flesh.  Let  us  not  draw 
the  blood  that  shall  make  much  of  the  inheritance  of  our 
Church  confiscate.  Now,  dear  brethren,  I  plead  not  for  Dr. 
Briggs,  for  I  am  a  loyal  Princetonian.  God  has  given  me 
a  son  who  has  chosen  the  ministry,  who  graduated  with  high 
honors  under  Dr.  Patton  last  June,  and  who  has  already 
made  his  arrangements  with  our  beloved  Moderator  to  enter 
the  seminary  next  September,  while  he  might  attend  Union 
and  board  at  home ;  but  with  my  advice  and  approval  he 
goes  to  Princeton,  and  thus  I  prove  my  loyalty  to  that 
institution.  I  plead  not  for  Dr.  Briggs ;  I  plead  for  charity, 
I  plead  for  peace,  I  plead  for  the  broadest  liberty  of  inves- 
tigation in  the  scholarship  of  our  Church.  And  if  it  be 
possible  for  Dr.  Briggs,  or  those  whom  he  represents,  to 
destroy  our  Bible,  then  I  want  it  destroyed.  I  do  not  give 
a  farthing  for  a  Bible  that  is  conserved  by  the  deliverance 
of  a  General  Assembly.  Let  us  not  be  afraid  of  dangers 
that  I  think  have  been  magnified  in  our  mind.  I  think 
a  sort  of  wave  of  enthusiasm  for  the  old  orthodoxy 
has  taken  possession  of  us,  so  that  we  know  not  of  what 
spirit  we  are.  I  plead  that  you  will  halt ;  I  plead  that  you 
will  for  a  moment  wait  and  think  of  that  which  is  before 
you.  We  are  making  history  to-day,  brethren.  Let  us  be 
careful  that  we  do  not  make  a  history  that  our  children  will 
have  to  apologize  for,  as  the  Presbyterian  Church  has  ever 
been  apologizing  for  Calvin  when  he  consented  to  the  burn- 
ing of  Servetus  in  Geneva.  Let  us  not  make  history  so  that 
our  children  will  have  to  apologize  for  our  position  as  some 
have  in  their  position  toward  Albert  Barnes.  Let  us  halt 
until  the  waters  shall  quiet  down.  I  plead  not  for  Briggs, 
I  plead  not  for  heresy.  I  plead  simply  for  the  broadest 
charity  and  the   broadest   investigation,  the   most   liberal   in- 


114  THE   UNION  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

vestigation  in  our  Church.  I  do  not  believe  that  the  Pres- 
byterian Cliurch  can  afford  to  take  any  other  position  tlian 
this.  Some  of  my  brethren  have  said  to  me :  "  AVe  care 
not  M'hat  tlie  world  says ;  we  must  not  be  influenced  by  the 
world."  But,  dear  brethren,  we  are  dealing  w^th  a  world 
lost  in  sin.  AVe  are  here  to  bring  them  to  grace,  to  bring 
them  to  a  knowledge  of  the  saving  love  of  God  in  Jesus 
Christ  our  Lord.  We  have  to  deal  with  the  world,  and  the 
world  may  misinterpret  us  if  we  take  this  action  to-day. 
They  will  not  even  give  you  the  credit  of  honesty  of  pur- 
pose, some  of  them ;  and  so  I  plead  that  you  will  in  the 
magnanimity  of  your  hearts  consent  to  the  adoption  of  this 
amendment  in  the  interest  of  the  peace  and  harmony  of  our 
Church. 

Suppose  that  it  was  one  of  you.  Suppose  it  was  you, 
my  brother,  that  had  made  some  mistake ;  that  had  said 
things  that  you  ought  not  to  have  said,  and  the  eye  of  the 
Church  was  focussed  upon  you,  and  that  this  General  Assem- 
bly was  discussing  your  case.  Would  you  consider  it  a 
great  thing  if  they  held  off  their  hands  for  a  little  until  this 
matter  could  be  investigated  in  the  judicial  manner  provided 
in  the  form  of  government  in  our  Church,  through  the  Pres- 
bytery of  New  York?  I  think  not.  I  think  you  would 
think  it  was  a  very  hasty  action  to  do  otherwise.  It  makes 
a  vast  difference,  brethren,  whose  ox  is  being  gored.  So  it 
is  for  this  that  I  plead.  Let  us  turn  to  the  great  thoughts 
and  objects  of  our  Church.  This  is  not  the  greatest  subject. 
This  sinks  into  insignificance  beside  the  great  commission, 
"Go  ye  into  all  the  world  and  preach  the  Gospel  to  every 
creature."  Why,  if  the  position  taken  by  Dr.  Briggs  be 
false  it  will  come  to  nothing.  If  it  be  true,  what  are  we 
that  we  shall  stand  against  it?  lest  with  Paid  we  be  found 
fighting  against  God. 


ANOTHER  DECADE  OF  ITS  HISTORY.  II5 

In  explaining  his  amendment — "for  the  present" — 
Dr.  Logan  said : 

It  is  not  a  very  gracious  task  to  undertake  to  attack 
such  an  ecclesiastical  lawyer  as  Dr.  Patton,  or  such  civil 
lawyers  as  have  spoken  from  the  platform  on  this  subject. 
But  it  is  a  queer  kind  of  law  that  these  brethren  have  given 
us,  as  it  strikes  an  old  Presbyterian.  I  am  amazed  at  the 
report  of  this  committee.  ...  I  say  it  is  not  wise  as  a 
work  of  administration  to  take  this  judgment  as  announced 
by  the  committee  which  impeaches  the  act  of  the  Board  of 
Directors  of  Union  Seminary,  which  impeaches  the  character 
of  Dr.  Briggs  as  a  professor — and  all  this  without  having 
the  parties  before  us,  and  without  having  a  full  understand- 
ing of  the  case,  and  in  the  face  of  those  categorical  answers 
to  direct  questions,  which  the  Board  of  Directors  have  issued 
as  a  vindication  of  their  acts — I  say  it  is  not  Avise.  It  will 
lead  to  bickerings  and  misunderstandings ;  it  will  lead  to 
controversy,  and  it  will  have  a  bad  effect.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  if  we  go  slowly,  if  we  go  to  these  men  kindly, 
they  may  see  the  wrong ;  the  things  that  need  mending  may 
be  mended,  and,  if  not,  the  evil  will  develop  itself  distinctly 
so  that  the  Church  of  God  shall  be  able  wisely  to  destroy 
it.  That  is  my  reason  for  this  amendment.  I  beg  you  to 
walk  slowly  and  reach  a  decision,  on  which  you  may  be 
able  to  present  a  united  Church  before  the  living  God  for 
the  glory  of  our  one  Lord.      (Applause). 

Dr.  Ramsey,  of  New  York,  followed  Dr.  Logan  in  a 
vigorous  protest  against  the  report  of  the  committee. 
Here  is  an  extract  from  his  speech  : 

I  venture  to  doubt  the  constitutionality  of  any  Presby- 
tery  passing   over   its    right    of  original  jurisdiction    to    the 


116  THE   UNION  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

court  of  final  appeal.  I  believe,  sir,  that  Avhatever  we  do 
in  this  case,  however  Ave  may  disguise  it,  it  will  be  a  virtual 
trial  of  the  case. 

This  leads  me,  therefore,  to  the  second  point,  that  I  do 
not  think  it  constitutional.  This  proposed  action  infringes 
on  the  right  of  the  individual.  Dr.  Briggs  is  not  here.  He 
has  no  case  in  court.  The  directors  of  the  Union  Theolo- 
gical Seminary  in  their  plight,  in  their  anxiety,  asked  that 
Dr.  Briggs  and — mark  now,  I  am  not  a  Briggs  man  in  the 
sense  that  that  term  is  used — solemnly  to  state  what  he  be- 
lieved, and  he  wrote  that  short  catechism,  with  its  yeas  and 
nays,  and  which,  if  it  had  been  handed  in  by  any  other  man 
than  Professor  Briggs,  would  have  been  received  as  the  cor- 
rect interpretation  of  previous  utterances.  Instead  of  that, 
sir,  as  you  all  know,  it  has  met  with  a  destructive  analysis, 
and  this  catechism  has  been  finally  interpreted  back  by  the 
inaugural.  Brethren,  if  there  is  one  thing  I  do,  I  stand  for 
the  rights  of  a  man,  whether  he  be  my  friend  or  my  foe.  I 
do  not  believe  that  this  glorious  Presbyterian  Church  can 
ever  let  the  semblance  of  a  trial  pass  without  the  due  forms 
had  been  taken  ;  and  yet  we  are  drifting  toward  a  virtual 
verdict  before  the  Presbytery  has  even  framed  its  indictment. 

Now,  that  is  the  case  of  this  man  as  he  stands  before  us. 
His  last  utterance,  solemn  utterance,  satisfactory  to  the 
directors  of  Union  Seminary,  has  been  utterly  ignored  here; 
and,  sir,  if  it  means  anything,  it  means  that  we  doubted  its 
sincerity.  Perhaps  you  say,  "  we  have  the  right."  But  God 
Almighty  grant  that  the  day  be  far  distant  when  we  may 
impeach  an  uncondcmned  brother's  veracity  or  receive  his 
words  as  if  they  came  from  a  Delphic  oracle,  or  assume  that 
his  writings  may  be  read  between  the  lines.  If  the  evidence 
is  convincing,  I  shall  folloAV  up  this  case  and  be  found 
voting    against    Dr.    Briggs.       Yet,    sir,  he    shall    have    any 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  \Yl 

guard  thrown  around  him  that  I  can  possibly  aid  in  giving 
him  in  any  stage  of  his  trial.  ...  I  think  this  action 
is  an  infringement  on  the  constitutional  rights  of  the  Pres- 
bytery of  New  York.  It  is  an  advanced  shadow  of  a 
decision,  at  least  in  a  higher  court.  ...  If  this  goes 
through  the  whole  matter  of  a  trial  may  secure  a  weak 
force.  I  protest  as  a  New  York  Presbyterian  against  any 
action  by  this  Assembly  that  anticipates  final  action. 

Here  are  a  few  passages  from  Dr.  Worcester's  forci- 
ble and  manly  speech  : 

When  I  heard  that  this  matter  had  been  intrusted  to 
some  of  the  clearest  brains  in  the  Church  I  felt  reassured, 
and  it  was  with  profound  disappointment  that  I  listened  to 
their  report  when  they  presented  it  to  this  Assembly.  The 
course  proposed  in  that  report  is  an  extreme  course.  Dr. 
Patton  told  us  yesterday  that  this  was  the  very  least  that 
this  Assembly  could  do.  What  more  could  this  Assembly 
do?  You  cannot  hang  Dr.  Briggs ;  you  cannot  imprison 
him ;  you  cannot  cast  him  out  of  the  Church  ;  you  cannot 
depose  him  from  the  ministry ;  you  cannot  impeach  his 
orthodoxy  or  touch  his  moral  character.  The  one  thing 
that  you  can  do  is  to  veto,  bluntly,  absolutely,  without  a 
reason  given,  his  appointment.  Even  upon  your  power  to 
do  that  the  committee  admit  there  rests  the  shadow  of  a 
doubt,  sufficient  to  make  them  think  it  necessary  to  appoint 
fifteen  wise  men  before  another  year  to  clear  it  away.  But 
in  the  meantime — and  I  wonder  if  I  am  the  only  commis- 
sioner to  whom  the  relation  of  the  two  resolutions  in  the 
report  was  a  surprise — while  we  admit  that  there  may  be 
some  question  about  our  authority  to  do  this,  we  will  behead 
the  man  and  then  we  will  confer  with  the  directors  as  to 
whether  we  had  the  rig-ht  to  do  it. 


118  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

Then  I  object  to  this  report  because  it  is  an  arbitrary 
report.  It  says  that  we  disapprove  this  appointment,  and 
gives  no  reason.  Judge  Breckinridge  said  yesterday,  and 
we  all  recognize  its  force,  that  a  judge  might  often  give  a 
wise  decision  founded  on  bad  reasons,  and  therefore,  it  was 
better  never  to  give  reasons  if  you  could  help  it.  But  in  a 
matter  which  touches  the  standing,  the  reputation  of  a  man, 
in  a  matter  which  may  produce  an  ecclesiastical  trial  already 
initiated,  you  cannot  help  it ;  you  have  no  right  to  help  it. 
Why,  if  I  remember  rightly,  it  is  not  so  many  years  since 
there  was  a  great  controversy  over  the  question  whether  the 
President  of  the  United  States  had  the  right  even  to  behead 
a  postmaster  without  giving  a  reason  for  it.  Now  we  pro- 
pose to  behead  officially  a  theological  professor  without 
stating  any  reason  for  it.  We  were  told  by  President 
Patton  that  a  great  many  reasons  might  be  given.  Why 
don't  the  committee  give  a  reason  ?  Mr.  Moderator,  I  fear 
it  was  because  the  committee  knew  that  no  one  reason  would 
carry  a  majority  of  this  Assembly  with  it.  Dr.  Patton 
admitted  that  it  would  not  do  to  say  that  it  was  on  account 
of  the  idiosyncracries  of  the  Professor.  He  said  the  theologi- 
cal reasons,  not  amounting  to  a  charge  of  heresy,  might 
have  been  given  ;  but  he  admitted  that,  with  all  his  power 
of  lucid  statement,  in  which  he  has  not  a  peer  in  this 
Assembly,  those  reasons  would  be  so  intricate  and  obscure 
that  a  very  few  would  be  able  to  distinguish  them  from  a 
charge  of  heresy.  He  admitted  that  it  would  not  do  to 
charge  him  on  the  ground  that  he  is  not  sound  in  faith, 
because  that  would  be  anticipating  the  decision  of  the  Pres- 
bytery of  New  York.  And  the  only  reason  that  I  could 
discover  that  he  would  urge  as  a  practical  reason  that  might 
have  been  given  Avas  that  Dr.  Briggs  is  under  suspicion. 
Sir,  shall    we    disapprove    of   this    appointment    because   Dr. 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  Hg 

Briggs  is  under  suspicion,  when  we  know  that  steps  have 
already  been  initiated  to  sift  tliis  suspicion  and  ascertain 
whether  it  is  right  or  wrong.  Is  it  not  one  of  the  princi- 
ples of  our  Church  to  stand  by  a  man  who  is  under  suspi- 
cion until  this  suspicion  has  been  sifted  to  the  bottom?  At 
all  events  I  protest  against  a  bare  disapproval  of  this  elec- 
tion without  any  reason  being  given.  I  protest  against  it 
because  it  will  inevitably,  as  ]Mr.  Ramsey  has  so  well  said, 
have  an  influence  upon  the  judicial  proceedings  of  the  Pres- 
bytery of  New  York.  The  world  will  believe,  and  the 
New  York  Presbytery  will  believe,  that  if  this  Assembly 
has  not  suspected  Dr.  Briggs  of  serious  departure  from  the 
faith  it  would  never  have  taken  this  action,  and  the  only 
way  in  which  you  can  prevent  that  impression  from  being 
made  on  the  mind  of  the  Church  and  on  the  mind  of  the 
country  is  to  give  some  other  reason  with  your  resolution. 

Dr.  Erskine  opposed  the  second  resolution  of  the 
report,  and  also  Dr.  Worcester's  substitute,  but  was 
heard  by  the  Assembly  with  not  a  little  impatience. 
This  part  of  his  speech,  at  least,  seemed  to  show  that 
he  understood  the  subject  far  better  than  some  of  his 
more  eloquent  brethren.  Here  is  what  he  said  as  to 
the  second  recommendation  of  the  committee  : 

It  is  proposed  that  we  appoint  a  committee  and  go  and 
hold  a  conference  Avith  the  Union  Seminary  directors  in  re- 
gard to  Dr.  Briggs'  relation  to  that  seminary,  and  to  give 
them  some  advice.  Mr.  Moderator,  what  authority  have  we 
for  that?  Where  have  we  any  authority  in  regard  to  Union 
Seminary,  excepting  that  which  is  embraced  in  the  compact 
between  that  seminary  and  us  in  the  articles  of  agreement 
which  were  adopted  in  the  year  l<S70in  tlie  General  Assem- 


120  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

bly  at  Philadelphia  ?  And  where  have  we  any  authority  to 
go  to  them  and  advise  with  them,  to  do  anything  outside  of 
the  compact  ?  None  whatever.  This  proposition  is  a  mis- 
leading proposition.  It  would  have  us  surrender  the  only 
authority  we  have  in  regard  to  the  instructions  which  are 
given  to  our  candidates  for  the  ministry  in  Union  Seminary, 
and  to  assume  an  authority  that  does  not  belong  to  us.  If 
we  do  so,  we  just  allow  ourselves  to  be  misled  and  outwitted. 
The  only  control  as  an  Assembly  that  we  have  over  the 
theological  seminary — I  mean  directly,  except  through  the 
Synod  and  the  Presbytery  where  we  may  reach  ministers  and 
elders — is  embraced  in  that  compact  which  has  been  entered 
into  between  the  General  Assembly  and  our  theological  semi- 
naries, and  the  power  that  we  have  is  the  power  of  disap- 
proval in  regard  to  a  professor  that  has  been  elected  ;  and  if 
you  surrender  that  power,  you  surrender  all  the  controlling 
power  that  you  have  in  regard  to  the  instructions  that  are 
given  in  these  seminaries.  Suppose  you  adopt  this  substi- 
tute ;  suppose  you  appoint  your  most  prominent,  most  influ- 
ential and  wisest  representatives.  You  go  there  and  make 
your  propositions.  Why,  they  will  receive  you  very  cordially 
and  politely,  and  say  :  "  Gentlemen,  we  will  take  this  into 
consideration ;  we  will  take  time  to  consider  this.  We  are 
obliged  to  you  ;  we  shall  treat  it  with  great  respect  and  great 
courtesy."  And  they  will  take  it  into  consideration,  and  what 
will  be  the  result  ?  You  can  all  anticipate  it.  Tlie  majority 
of  the  directors  in  that  theological  seminary  have  sat  upon 
this  question  again  and  again.  There  is  a  minority  in  that 
board  with  whom  you  might  deal  if  you  had  the  power,  and 
they  had  the  power ;  but  the  majority  of  that  Board  of 
Directors  have  acted  upon  this,  and  they  have  expressed 
their  approval  and  their  confidence  in  the  views  held  by  the 
person    in    question.       And    so  if  we    were    to    go    into    this 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  121 

arrangement  it  would  be  vetoing  the  great  issue.  It  would 
be  surrendering  the  power  that  we  have,  and  it  would  be 
putting  you  in  a  position  just  to  be  treated  with  simple 
courtesy  by  that  board.  You  have  no  authority  over  them, 
and  I  don't  know  that  they  have  any  authority  to  carry  out 
the  proposition  that  is  made. 

This  common  sense  view  of  the  relations  of  the 
Assembly  to  the  directors  of  the  Union  Seminary  may 
very  well  be  compared  with  that  expressed,  or  implied, 
by  Dr.  Patton,  for  example,  in  the  following  passages 
of  his  speech : 

We  have  recognized  that  as  a  judge  we  are  bound  to 
construe,  and  we  have  recognized  that  as  a  party  Union 
Seminary  claim  that  their  rights  have  been  infringed  by  our 
construction,  and  if  they  see  fit  they  can  take  us  into  the 
civil  courts  for  a  judicial  and  authoritative  interpretation  of 
this  compact.  .  .  .  Now  we  understand  that  you  intend 
to  take  us  in  the  courts.*  Well,  brethren,  is  that  the  best 
course  to  pursue  ?  Can't  we  talk  the  matter  over  ?  It  is 
possible,  you  know,  that  you  may  be  wrong.  Is  it  not 
possible,  therefore,  that  they  may  come  around  ?  You  might 
elect  a  man  as  professor  of  Elocution,  and  then  transfer  him 
to  the  chair  of  Theology.  Isn't  it  possible  that  the  directors 
will  feel  that  the  Assembly  was  right,  after  all  ?  Why,  cer- 
tainly. On  the  other  hand,  isn't  it  possible  that  your  com- 
mittee would  change  their  view,  and  that  they  would  recom- 
mend the  next  Assembly  to  reverse  the  judgment  of  this 
Assembly  ?  Isn't  that  possible  ?  Why,  of  course  it  is  pos- 
sible ;    all    things    are    possible.     (Laughter   and    applause.) 

*This  was  an  idle  rumor.  The  board  never  thought  of  taking  the 
Assembly  into  court.      How   could  it  have   done  so? 


122  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

That  -vyould  be  a  representative  committee  —  eight  ministers 
and  seven  elders,  composed  of  the  best  men,  the  wisest  law- 
yers, and  to  such  a  committee  would  we  intrust  this  duty. 
Isn't  it  possible  that  both  parties,  in  their  inability  to  change 
their  views,  may  say :  "  Well,  we  do  not  want  to  go  to  the 
courts.  We  remember  what  Paul  said  about  prosecuting  these 
matters  before  the  heathen  court."  But  cannot  the  General 
Assembly  on  the  report  of  this  committee  and  the  Board  of 
Directors  of  Union  Seminary  agree  to  refer  the  constitutional 
interpretation  of  this  old  compact,  which  is  liable  to  come 
up  and  be  a  source  of  disturbance  in  years  to  come  —  refer 
it,  not  to  this  committee,  not  to  the  Board  of  Directors  of 
Union  Seminary,  but  to  some  Christian  men  outside,  known 
for  their  wisdom,  praised  for  their  fairness,  and  saying  on 
our  part  as  a  General  Assembly,  while  they  say  on  their 
part  as  a  Board  of  Directors,  "  Dear  brethren,  we  are  per- 
fectly willing  to  let  any  fair-minded  set  of  men  arbitrate  this 
question  ?  "     These  are  the  possibilities  in  the  case.  * 

The  vote  was  taken  late  in  the  afternoon  of  May 
29th.  It  resulted  in  the  adoption  of  the  resolutions  of 
the  committee  by  the  overwhelming  majority  of  447  to 
60.  On  the  afternoon  of  May  28th  Judge  Breckin- 
ridge, a  commissioner  from  St.  Louis,  at  the  moment 
of  closing  a  speech  in  favor  of  the  report,  dropped  dead 
in  the  presence  of  the  whole  Assembly.  This  startling 
incident,  following  so  quickly  upon  the  almost  equally 
sudden  death  of  the  Kev.  Henry  J.  VanDyke,  D.D., 
professor-elect  to  the  chair  of  Systematic  Theology  in 

*  These  quotations,  as  all  others,  from  the  speeches  made  in  the  As- 
sembly, are  taken  from  the  revised  reports  of  the  New  York  Tribune, 
printed  in  pamphlet  form  under  tlie  title.  The  Presbyterian  Faith. 


ANOTHER  DECADE  OF  ITS  HISTORY.  123 

• 

Union  Seminary — a  noble  man  and  one  of  the  foremost 
leaders  in  the  Presbyterian  Church — tended  naturally 
to  deepen  the  serious  feeling  which  already  pervaded 
the  Assembly. 

I  have  said  that  the  advocates  of  a  veto  had  it  all 
their  own  way,  which  consisted  in  asserting  very  posi- 
tively that  Dr.  Briggs  ought  to  be  vetoed,  and  that  he 
must  be  vetoed  "  now  or  never."  The  latter  point  was 
urged  with  great  solemnity  and  most  impressive  reiter- 
ation. "  We  are  under  obligation,"  said  Mr.  McCook, 
"  as  honest  men,  as  Christian  men,  to  carry  out  in  its 
exact  terms  all  the  provisions  of  that  compact,  and  we 
cannot,  we  dare  not,  postpone  action.  We  must  act 
now  and  before  the  adjournment  of  this  Assembly,  or 
the  right  to  disapj)rove  is  lost  forever."  Dr.  Patton 
was  equally  emphatic  as  to  the  "  now  or  never,"  giving 
as  a  reason  how  lie  should  feel  if  threatened  with  a  veto 
in  the  indefinite  future.     Here  is  what  he  said  : 

The  question  is  whether  we  have  the  right  to  veto.  I 
think  we  have.  .  .  .  Very  well,  suppose  we  have  that 
right,  how  long  does  that  right  last?  One  General  Assem- 
bly has  said  that  it  can  last  only  during  the  Assembly  im- 
mediately following  the  election  of  the  professor.  Very  well, 
I  think  that  is  a  good  rule.  It  may  seem  a  singular  thing 
for  me  to  play  the  role  of  an  advocate  of  freedom  ;  (laugh- 
ter) but  I  am.  I  am  a  professor.  I  have  the  prejudices 
of  my  class,  and  I  tell'  you  that,  in  the  name  of  that  class, 
I  will  protest  against  the  right  of  an  Assembly  to  hold  tJie 
threat  of  a  veto  over  me  for  a  dozen  years  in  succession. 
They  have  their  chance  once,  and  if  they  don't  veto  my  ap- 


124  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

pointment  then,  they  ought  not  to  have  the  chance  four  or 
five  years  hence.  Suppose  you  admit  that  you  can  postpone 
this  veto.  By  and  by  some  other  professor  will  be  saying 
something  that  is  not  right,  as  we  think,  and  we  shall  say, 
"Let  us  go  and  veto  him.  We  did  not  veto  him  then,  but 
we  will  do  it  now."  Who  is  safe?  I  tell  you  it  is  in  the 
interest  of  freedom ;  it  is  in  the  interest  of  a  proper  freedom 
that  you  should  not  allow  that  it  is  possible  to  postpone  the 
veto.  You  have  to  do  it  now,  or  not  at  all.  Very  well. 
Now,  then,  you  have  the  right  to  veto,  and  if  you  veto,  you 
must  veto  now. 

A  veto,  after  all,  was  a  terrible  thing  to  be  threatened 
with  !  It  seems  to  have  made  the  chairman  of  the 
Standing  Committee  on  Theological  Seminaries  himself 
squirm  to  think  of  being  the  possible  subject  of  it. 
Theological  freedom,  too,  might  be  at  stake ;  and  theo- 
logical freedom,  the  proper  liberty  of  a  Christian  scholar 
and  teacher,  in  the  last  decade  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, was  a  very  serious  matter.  If  it  must  be  done, 
let  it  be  done  quickly  and  put  the  man  out  of  his  mis- 
ery. Precisely  so  ;  but  who  would  have  guessed  it  from 
other  parts  of  this  speech  ? 

But  even  admitting,  for  the  moment,  that  the  Assem- 
bly had  a  right  to  veto  Dr.  Briggs'  transfer,  was  it  true 
that  now  or  never  was  the  absolute  condition  of  its 
exercise?  Nothing  could  be  further  from  the  truth. 
The  rule  adopted  by  the  Assembly,  that  the  veto  power 
must  be  used,  if  at  all,  by  the  Assembly  to  which  the 
election  is  reported,  formed  no  part  of  the  agreement  of 
1870,  but  was  suggested  and  adopted  a  year  later.    The 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  125 

Board  of  Directors  of  Union  Seminary  had  nothing  to 
do  with  it.  Although  a  very  sensible  rule,  it  was  yet 
in  the  nature  of  a  mere  by-law,  belonging  to  the  admin- 
istrative functions  of  the  Assembly,  and  in  such  an 
exigency  might  have  been  suspended  without  the 
slightest  impropriety.  But  the  leaders  of  the  Assem- 
bly— not  to  sjDeak  with  any  disrespect — seem  to  have 
had  "  compact,"  as  well  as  the  veto  of  Dr.  Briggs,  "  on 
the  brain,"  as  the  phrase  is,  and  so  a  simple  rule  of 
fairness  and  prudence,  with  which,  however,  Union 
Seminary  had. nothing  to  do,  took  on,  in  their  reason- 
ing, the  color  and  rigidity  of  a  law  of  the  Medes  and 
Persians  which  changeth  not !  A  good  deal  in  the 
whole  matter  impelled  one  to  say  with  Faust, 

— der  casus  macht  mich  lachen, 

but  nothing,  I  think,  like  this  "  now  or  never  "  plea. 

The  Assembly  then,  it  is  plain,  was  fatally  misled  by 
the  "  now  or  never  "  plea.  That  plea  was  based  upon  a 
sheer  mistake.  But  it  served  its  purpose  quite  as  well 
as  if  it  had  been  based  upon  an  opinion  of  Chief  Justice 
Marshall,  or  upon  the  latest  decision  of  the  United 
States  Supreme  Court.  It  deluded  the  Assembly  into 
just  the  right  state  of  mind  for  the  stern  work  in  hand 
— vetoing  Dr.  Briggs.  See  how  skillfully  Dr.  Patton 
put  the  case : 

We  are  here  ;  the  Presbyteries  have  sent  us  here,  and 
the  report  of  the  Union  Theological  Seminary  has  brought 
this  question  right  up  to  the  bar  of  every  man's   conscience, 


126  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

and  you  cannot  avoid  it,  and  you  dare  not  avoid  it.  I  do 
not  use  the  word  "  dare  "  in  an  unkind  sense  at  all,  I  sim- 
ply use  it  in  the  moral  sense.  There  we  are.  Now  for  us 
not  to  express  technical  disapproval  is  for  us  to  express 
technical  aj)provaL  And  it  is  not  a  matter  of  reflection  upon 
Union  Seminary,  or  a  matter  of  sentiment  or  regard  for  their 
feelings,  or  a  matter  of  how  much  disturbance  this  is  going 
to  occasion  the  Church,  but  it  is  a  question  as  to  the  dis- 
charge of  a  solemn  duty  at  the  bar  of  your  conscience  and 
of  mine,  here  and  now.  Then  I  think  that  every  man  of 
us  will  agree  that  the  question  is  here.  It  is  here.  We 
must  say,  seeing  that  we  have  a  right  to  veto,  and  seeing 
that  we  can  never  veto,  if  we  do  not  do  it  now,  we  must 
say  whether  or  no  there  is  occasion  for  the  veto.  Now  is 
there  an  occasion  for  veto? 

Could  he  have  got  his  hearers  just  where  he  wanted 
them  more  adroitly  ?  They  were  in  exactly  the 
"solemnized"  mood  and  posture  of  thought  to  hear 
most  attentively  his  answer  to  the  question,  "  Now  is 
there  occasion  for  veto  ?"  No  wonder,  as  the  Detroit 
reporter  said,  they  listened  "spell-bound."  This 
solemn,  reiterated  plea,  "  now  or  never,"  coupled  with 
the  "compact"  plea,  carried  all  before  it.  The  only 
wonder  is  how  sixty  commissioners  kept  cool  enough  to 
vote  against  vetoing  Dr.  Briggs.  I  am  really  afraid 
I  myself  should  have  vetoed  Dr.  Briggs,  had  I  been  a 
commissioner.  As  to  the  skillful  way  in  which  the 
"compact"  plea  was  handled,  who  can  fail  to  admire  it  ? 
The  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Theological  Semi- 
naries took  the  "compact"  under  his  special  care  and 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  127 

guardianship.  He  was  very  jealous  of  the  slightest 
interference  with  it,  even  by  so  honored  and  learned  an 
ecclesiastic  as  Dr.  Moore.     Hear  him  : 

If  we  are  going  to  veto  under  the  terms  of  the  compact, 
we  must  veto  in  the  terms  of  the  compact. 

Dr.  Moore  (the  Permanent  Clerk) — "  Excuse  me,  Doctor, 
a  moment.  I  want  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  while 
the  first  of  that  is  the  compact,  the  second  is  simply  the 
decision  of  the  General  Assembly." 

Dr.  Patton — That  is  not  relevant  to  my  remarks.  .  .  . 
And  so  I  go  back  to  my  statement,  in  spite  of  the  in- 
strwAion  that  I  have  received,  and  I  say  that  if  you  intend 
to  veto  under  the  terms  of  the  compact,  you  must  veto  in 
the  terms  of  the  compact.  Now,  what  are  the  terms  of  the 
compact?  .  .  .  Now,  when  you  talk  of  disapproving  "for 
the  present"  you  depart  from  your  compact,  and  you  have 
simply  expressed  your  oral  dislike  and  put  the  stigma  of 
your  moral  disapproval  upon  the  case,  but  you  have  done 
nothing. 

I  tried  to  count  up  the  number  of  times  in  which 
"compact"  occurred  in  this  speech,  but  my  memory 
failed  me.  How  extremely  interested,  not  to  say  enter- 
tained, Williams  Adams,  George  W.  Musgrave,  Henry 
B.  Smith,  Jonathan  F.  Stearns  and  Edwin  F.  Hatfield 
would  have  been  in  listening  to  this  exposition  of  "  the 
compact  of  1870,"  and  now  or  never,  by  so  adroit  an 
ecclesiastic  as  the  president  of  Princeton  College ! 

The  most  striking  point  in  the  chairman's  discussion 
of  the  question,  whether  there  was  occasion  for  veto,  is 
"kindness"  to  Dr.  Briggs.     Can  the  records  of  Ameri- 


128  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

can  Presbyterianism  furnish  another  instance  of  such 
peculiar  kindness?  It  was  "kindness"  to  Dr.  Briggs 
that  forced  him  to  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  all  entreaties  for 
"  reasons."  "  Well,  but,"  it  is  said,  "  couldn't  you 
state  some  reasons  without  involving  the  question  of 
heresy?"  "Yes,"  I  said,  "I  could."  "Well,"  said 
some  one,  "  you  have  been  working  in  theology ; 
couldn't  you  draft  such  a  report?"  "  Yes,"  I  said,  "  I 
might."  But  "kindness"  to  Dr.  Briggs  forbade  it. 
Here  are  some  passages  about  Dr.  Briggs : 

When  your  feelings  cool  down,  brethren,  you  will  see 
that  this  is  a  much  kinder  thing  than  you  think,  and  it  is 
not  so  cold,  either ;  we  made  it  cold,  but  it  is  not  so  cold. 
.  .  .  So  far  as  Dr.  Briggs  is  concerned,  I  will  yield  to 
none  of  his  friends,  not  even  the  best,  in  my  recognition  of 
his  learning,  in  my  admiration  of  his  industry,  in  my  con- 
viction concerning  his  piety.  He  is  my  friend.  It  is  my 
privilege  to  call  him  so.  I  venture  to  hope  that  in  spite  of 
my  relations  to  this  debate  he  will  not  be  unwilling  to 
reciprocate  my  expression  of  the  relationship  between  us.  . 
.  .  I  wish  to  say  that  we  have  done  this  in  the  interest 
of  kindness  to  Dr.  Briggs.  I  would  be  unwilling  for  the 
Assembly  to  pass  a  resolution,  in  the  full  body  of  which 
there  should  be  the  stigma  of  a  constitutional  kind,  that 
would  affirm  that  Dr.  Briggs'  idiosyncrasies  are  such  that  he 
should  not  be  a  professor  in  a  seminary.  Why,  a  man's 
idiosyncrasies  go  with  him  through  life,  and  I  don't  know 
but  they  go  into  the  middle  state,  (laughter)  and  I  am  not 
willing  to  say  that  Dr.  Briggs  is  not  fit  to  be  a  professor 
in  any  seminary.  I  am  not  willing  to  say  that  he  is  not 
fit  to  be  a  professor  in  Union   Seminary.      Not  at  all.     .     . 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  129 

I  said,  "Brethren,  it  is  not  kind,  it  is  not  right  for  the 
Assembly,  in  its  explicit  utterance  on  the  adoption  of  a  re- 
port, to  say  a  word  that  can  be  construed,  even  remotely,  to 
the  detriment  of  Dr.  Briggs."  That  is  why  we  did  not 
give  reasons,  but  it  was  not  because  we  had  no  reasons. 
We  had  reasons. 

Dr.  Patton  and  his  committee,  then,  had  reasons. 
The  reasons  appear  to  have  been  as  plentiful  as  black- 
berries. But  nobody  was  the  wiser  for  them.  Nobody 
is  the  wiser  for  them  to  this  day.  I  have  been  unable 
to  find  any  authentic  record  of  them  ;  otherwise  they 
would  have  appeared  in  these  pages.  Every  now  and 
then  at  Detroit  they  seemed,  to  be  sure,  on  the  very 
point  of  leaking  out,  both  in  the  speeches  of  the  chair- 
man and  in  those  of  several  members  of  his  committee. 
In  other  speeches  they  not  only  leaked  out,  they  came 
gushing  out,  explicit  and  unmistakable.  I  said  that  a 
good  deal  of  the  discussion  at  Detroit  consisted  in  beat- 
ing about  the  bush.  In  this  the  chairman  surpassed 
all  his  brethren.  The  logical  agility  and  deftness  with 
which  he  beat,  and  beat  about,  this  particular  bush  of 
"no  reasons"  was  something  remarkable.  He  kept 
saying,  as  it  were  : 

Fain  would  I,  but  I  dare  not ;   I  dare,  and  yet  I  may  not. 

It  appears,  then,  that  while  the  Standing  Committee 
on  Theological  Seminaries  had  plenty  of  reasons — good, 
valid  reasons,  as  they  believed — for  recommending  the 
veto  of  Dr.  Briggs'  transfer,  they  purposely  concealed 
these  reasons,  alike  from  the  Assembly  and  from  the 


130  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

Christian  public.  Nobody,  I  repeat,  knew  then,  or 
knows  to  this  day,  unless  privately  informed  by  some 
member  of  the  committee,  what  was  the  real  ground  of 
the  decision  for  which  they  were  responsible  to  Chris- 
tian scholarship,  to  history,  and  to  God.  They  them- 
selves acted,  as  they  said,  in  the  light  of  their  own 
reason  and  conscience.  They  left  the  Assembly  to  act 
in  the  dark  and  adopt  their  decision  on  trust.  If  the 
President  of  the  United  States  disapprove  a  bill  passed 
by  Congress,  he  is  required  to  return  the  bill  with  his 
objections.  If  the  Governor  of  New  York  disapprove 
of  a  bill  passed  by  the  Legislature,  he  sends  it  back 
with  his  reasons  for  vetoing  it.  And  this  is  according 
to  the  true  genius  of  rej^ublican  liberty.  Our  Ameri- 
can idea  of  free  government  abhors  arbitrary,  reason- 
less exercise  of  power.  If  the  agreement  of  1870  had 
given  the  General  Assembly  "  the  right  of  peremptory 
veto,"  as  projDOsed  in  the  letter  of  Dr.  A.  A.  Hodge  to 
Henry  B.  Smith,  then,  indeed,  the  recommendation  of 
Dr.  Patton's  committee  would  have  been  in  order.  A 
peremptory  veto  is  a  veto  that  requires  no  explanation. 
It  is  like  an  edict  of  the  Sultan — an  arbitrary  act,  pure 
and  simple.  The  American  Presbyterianism,  in  which 
Union  Seminary  was  born  and  nurtured,  was  never 
fond  of  such  acts.  It  likes  to  give  a  good  reason  for 
what  it  does,  as  well  as  for  what  it  believes.  The  pow- 
er of  intelligible,  rational.  Christian  disapproval,  not  a 
peremptory  veto,  was  the  power  conceded  by  Union 
Seminarv  in  1870. 


ANOTHER   DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  131 

Before  passing  from  this  topic  I  desire  to  add  still 
another  word  respecting  the  course  of  the  Standing 
Committee  on  Theological  Seminaries.  When  I  wrote 
the  article  in  The  Evangelist  of  May  21,  1891,  on  the 
veto  power,  I  purposely  restrained  myself,  and  care- 
fully omitted  to  say  what  would  be,  in  my  judgment, 
the  inevitable  effects  of  a  veto  of  Dr.  Briggs'  transfer. 
In  this  perhaps  I  erred  ;  if  so,  it  was  in  the  interest  of 
the  peace  of  the  Church.  The  crisis  seemed  to  me 
serious  enough  to  demand  the  utmost  caution,  not  to  say 
reticence,  on  the  part  of  every  friend  of  Union  Semi- 
nary. Having  expressed  the  opinion  that  the  question 
about  the  veto  power  touched  in  principle  all  the  other 
theological  seminaries  in  the  Presbyterian  Church,  I 
closed  my  article  as  follows  : 

The  General  Assembly  is  shortly  to  convene  and  show 
its  judgment  upon  the  matter.  Nor,  for  myself,  have  I  any 
fear  of  the  result.  Many  of  the  ablest,  wisest,  and  best  men 
in  the  Presbyterian  Church,  both  of  the  ministry  and  ekler- 
ship,  will  sit  in  that  Assembly,  and  they  will  not  be  likely 
to  countenance  any  hasty  or  unjust  action. 

This  was  my  honest  feeling  and  expectation.  When, 
therefore,  the  result  came,  my  disappointment  was  all 
the  keener,  especially  with  regard  to  Dr.  Patton. 
Although  my  acquaintance  with  him  was  slight,  I  had 
for  many  years  admired,  as  I  admire  still,  his  varied 
gifts  and  his  remarkable  power  of  swaying  a  popular 
assembly.     His  oft-expressed  reverence  for  the  char- 


132  THE   UNION  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

acter  and  memory  of  my  bosom  friend,  Henry  B. 
Smith,  touched  me  in  a  very  tender  spot.  There  were 
few  men  in  the  Presbyterian  Church,  perhaps  there 
was  not  another  one,  of  whom  I  could  have  honestly 
said  just  what  in  my  letter  to  Dr.  Field,  in  The  Evan- 
gelist of  June  11,  I  wrote  of  him.  And  what  was 
there  written  of  him  expresses  so  truly  my  feeling  and 
opinion  still,  that  I  can  only  repeat  it  here : 

He  had  an  opportunity  to  speak  a  word  and  strike  a 
blow  for  justice,  for  sacred  scholarship,  for  reasonable  liberty, 
both  of  thought  and  teaching,  for  the  suppression  of  clamor, 
as  an  ecclesiastical  and  theological  force,  and  for  the  highest 
interests  of  Christian  truth,  which,  like  the  shot  fired  by  the 
"  embattled  farmers  "  at  Lexington,  would  have  been  "  heard 
round  the  world,"  Acting,  I  do  not  question,  from  a  strong 
sense  of  duty  to  the  Presbyterian  Church,  he  failed  to  seize 
it ;  and  he  will  be  a  fortunate  man  indeed,  if  Providence 
ever  again  entrusts  to  him  such  an  opportunity.* 

The  wrong  done  to  Union  Seminary  by  the  General 
Assembly  at  Detroit,  especially  in  the  composition  and 
action  of  its  Standing  Committee  on  Theological  Semi- 
naries, met  with  severe  censure  in  one  of  the  strongest 
and   most   conservative   religious    newspapers   of   the 


*  Since  writing  the  above  criticism  of  the  action  of  the  »Standing  Com- 
mittee on  Theological  Seminaries,  the  stenographic  report  of  the  meetings 
of  the  Board  of  Directors  and  the  Committee  of  Conference  has  been  put 
into  my  hands.  In  this  report  is  a  very  frank  statement  by  Dr.  Patton 
himself  of  the  reasons  why  Dr.  White  and  Dr.  Dickey  were  not  invited  to 
come  before  his  committee  at  Detroit.  It  is  due  to  him  that  this  state- 
ment should  be  published.     It  will  be  found  in  the  Appendix, 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  I33 

denomination.  Here  is  the  judgment  of  Dr.  Gray,  the 
plain-spoken,  fearless  editor  of  The  Interior,  pronounced 
a  year  later,  in  a  review  of  the  course  of  Dr.  Young, 
Moderator  of  the  Assembly  at  Portland,  Oregon,  in 
appointing  the  Judicial  Committee  and  that  on  Theo- 
logical Seminaries  : 

His  selections  showed  that  lie  was  not  only  fair  but 
magnanimous  to  the  minority.  He  gave  them  representa- 
tions on  both  committees,  not  only  equal  to,  but  larger  than 
their  proportion  as  shown  in  the  votes.  This  was  in  the 
widest  contrast  to  the  scandalous  proceeding  of  last  year;  in 
that  the  minority  not  only  had  no  representation  in  the  Com- 
mittee on  Theological  Seminaries,  but  were  denied  a  hearing 
before  the  committee,  though  they  urgently  requested  it. 
That  was,  in  our  opinion,  partly  the  cause  of  the  defiant  atti- 
tude taken  by  Union  Seminary.  No  one  can  have  any  doubt 
in  regard  to  Dr.  Young's  convictions  on  the  present  issues, 
nor  is  there  doubt  of  the  side  he  would  have  taken  had  he 
been  on  the  floor  of  the  Assembly.  But  he  is  large  enough 
as  a  man  to  be  what  he  is,  an  American  Presbyterian. 

The  principle  is  that  the  majority  liave  the  right  of  a 
majority  on  the  committee,  —  no  one  would  think  of  ques- 
tioning that  right — and  that  the  minority  have  a  right  to  pro- 
portionate representation  on,  and  a  full  hearing  before,  a 
committee.  This  has  never  been  denied  in  any  reputable 
deliberative  body,  civil  or  ecclesiastical,  with  the  single  ex- 
ception which  occurred  in  Detroit,  last  year.  We  did  not 
dwell  upon  it  at  that  time,  not  Avishing  to  add  to  the  gen- 
eral excitement,  but  now  that  it  has  been  fully  rectified  and 
the  Assembly's  dignity  restored,  we  express  the  hope  that  no 
such  wrong  may  ever  again  mar  her  fiiir  escutcheon. 


134  ^^^    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

{g)  The  action  of  the  General  Assembly  in  the  case 
of  Dr.  Briggs  as  an  eye-openei\ 

Before  closing  this  chapter  I  will  add  a  few  words 
about  the  action  at  Detroit  as  an  eye-opener.  The 
effect  of  the  veto  of  Dr.  Briggs  was  instantaneous  and 
far-reaching.  In  a  moment,  as  by  a  flash  of  lightning, 
the  agreement  of  1870  was  seen,  as  it  had  never  been 
seen  before.  It  was  seen  to  involve  alarming  possibil- 
ities of  harm  to  the  Presbyterian  Church,  to  free  Chris- 
tian scholarshij),  and  to  the  cause  of  theological  truth 
and  progress.  It  was,  probably,  at  once  the  cause  and 
the  subject  of  more  anxious  thought  in  one  week  after 
the  vote  at  Detroit,  than  during  all  the  previous  twenty 
years.  That  vote  revealed  it  as  an  arrangement  full  of 
explosive  mischief  Instead  of  contributing  to  the 
"  peace  and  prosperity  of  the  Church,"  by  j^romoting 
mutual  confidence  and  love,  it  showed  itself,  of  a  sud- 
den, as  a  stirrer  up  of  strife  and  bitterness.  It  proved 
that  the  many  disadvantages,  infelicities  and  perils, 
which,  to  those  who  took  an  active  part  in  founding  the 
Union  Theological  Seminary,  appeared  so  serious  in 
the  election  of  professors  by  the  General  Assembly 
itself,  were  no  less  incident  to  the  veto  power  in  the 
election  of  professors,  when  exercised  by  the  General 
Assembly.  In  other  words,  the  action  at  Detroit  dem- 
onstrated that  the  two  principal  grounds  upon  which 
the  veto  power  had  been  conceded  to  the  General 
Assembly  by  Union  Seminary  in  1870,  were  deceptive 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  135 

and  untenable.  The  evils  specially  deprecated  and  to 
be  guarded  against  by  the  concession  of  that  power 
were  sprung  upon  the  Church  in  its  very  first 
exercise.  With  the  best  intentions  in  the  world,  both 
the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  Union  Seminary  and  the 
General  Assembly  greatly  erred  as  to  the  effects  which, 
sooner  or  later,  would  be  caused  by  arming  the  Assem- 
bly with  authority  to  forbid,  year  in  and  year  out,  at 
its  absolute  discretion,  every  election  of  a  professor  in 
every  Presbyterian  theological  seminary  in  the  United 
States. 

For  a  time  it  may  have  served,  as  the  ninth  "  con- 
current declaration  "  of  1869  had  been  intended,  "  to 
allay  the  apprehensions  of  any  who  might  imagine  that 
the  sudden  accession  and  intermingling  of  great  num- 
bers [that  is,  the  coming  in  of  the  New  School  branch] 
might  overbear  those  who  had  hitherto  administered 
these  seminaries  which  had  been  under  the  control  of 
one  branch  of  the  Church.  It  was  intended  as  a  meas- 
ure for  the  maintenance  of  confidence  and  harmony, 
and  not  as  indicating  the  best  method  for  all  future 
time."  As  a  measure  for  the  maintenance  of  confi- 
dence and  harmony  during  that  critical  period  of  tran- 
sition from  a  divided  to  a  reunited  Church,  it  was, 
perhaps,  of  use.  But  time  had  long  since  allayed  any 
apprehensions,  which  the  Old  School  might  have  felt, 
of  being  overborne  in  the  administration  of  their  sem- 
inaries by  a  sudden  accession  of  the  New  School  to 
equal   power  in   the  General  Assembly.     Old  School 


136  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

and  New  School  were  fast  becoming  obsolete  terms. 
And  yet  who  can  wonder  that,  in  1870,  some  "  ap- 
prehensions," if  not  "jealousy,"  with  regard  to  this 
matter  still  existed  on  the  Old  School  side,  especially 
at  Princeton  ? 

The  General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  Church 
in  the  United  States,  to  return  to  my  point,  is  a  grand 
and  powerful  religious  body.  In  its  own  proper  sphere 
it  is  a  mighty  agency  for  building  up  and  extending 
the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth.  But  it  is  singularly 
unfitted  to  make  the  best  possible  choice,  or  to  ascertain 
and  forbid  the  unwise  choice,  of  a  theological  professor. 
The  chances  seem  to  me  as  ten  to  one  that,  in  all  ordi- 
nary cases,  the  choice  of  a  j)rofessor  in  Princeton,  or 
Auburn,  or  McCormick,  or  Union,  or  San  Francisco, 
or  any  other  seminary,  will  be  far  more  wisely  made 
by  its  own  Board  of  Directors  than  by  a  popular 
Assembly  composed  of  some  five  hundred  men,  living 
thousands  of  miles  apart,  coming  together  for  ten  days, 
subject  to  numberless  misleading  influences  through 
ignorance  of  the  candidate,  and  restrained  perhajDS  by 
only  a  feeble  sense  of  direct  personal  responsibility  in 
the  case.  Twenty  votes  in  a  Board  of  Directors,  com- 
posed, as  the  boards  of  our  theological  seminaries 
usually  are,  of  judicious,  experienced,  high-minded 
Christian  men,  stand  for  more,  and  are  worth  more, 
than  five  hundred  votes  in  General  Assembly.  Of 
course,  the  best  boards  are  liable  also  to  commit  mis- 
takes.    No   device  or   method   of  election   can   insure 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  I37 

against  possible  errors  and  imperfections  of  human 
judgment,  whether  it  be  the  judgment  of  eight  and 
twenty  directors  or  of  five  hundred  commissioners. 

Personally,  no  man  has  better  reason  than  I  have  to 
speak  well  of  the  General  Assembly  in  this  regard.  I 
myself  bear  its  imprimatur  as  "  the  standard  of  Pres- 
byterian orthodoxy."  Under  the  lead  of  that  apostolic 
servant  of  Christ,  Dr.  Charles  C.  Beatty,  the  first  Gen- 
eral Assembly  of  the  reunited  Church,  by  a  unanimous 
and  rising  vote,  elected  me  to  the  chair  of  Systematic 
Theology  in  one  of  its  most  important  seminaries  ;  and 
upon  my  declining  the  call,  re-elected  me  with  similar 
unanimity  in  1871.  Never  can  I  cease  to  feel  grateful 
in  remembrance  of  such  uncommon  kindness  and 
honor ;  grateful  also  in  memory  of  the  special  tokens 
of  personal  interest  and  good-will  which  I  received 
from  the  layman  so  distinguished  at  once  for  his  stanch 
Presbyterianism  and  his  generosity,  whose  name  the 
Seminary  of  the  Northwest  now  bears. 

I  will  now  proceed  to  note  some  of  the  ways  in  which 
the  action  at  Detroit,  in  the  case  of  Dr.  Briggs,  proved 
to  be  an  eye-opener. 

(1)  In  disclosing  the  doubts  and  scruples  respecting 
the  agreement  of  1870  which  existed  at  the  time,  but 
had  never,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  been  made  public. 
I  refer  more  especially  to  Lane  Seminary,  which,  like 
Union,  was  entirely  independent  of  ecclesiastical  con- 
trol. An  extract  from  a  letter  of  the  Kev.  Henry  A. 
Nelson,   D.D.,   addressed  to   Hon.  James  B.  Cox,  of 


138  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

Auburn,  and  j^ublished  in  The  Evangelist  of  June 
25tli,  sliows  what  was  done  at  Lane  and  why  it  was 
done.  Dr.  Nelson  was  a  member  of  the  Joint  Com- 
mittee on  Reunion,  as  well  as  a  professor  at  Lane,  and 
is  known  far  and  wide  as  an  eminently  wise  and  true 
man.     Here  is  the  extract : 

Our  Lane  Seminary  charter  made  its  Board  of  Trustees 
a  close  corporation,  empowered  to  fill  vacancies  in  its  own 
membership,  and  to  appoint  all  professors  and  instructors, 
who  should  hold  their  chairs  at  the  jileasure  of  the  board. 
Hon.  Stanley  Matthews,  afterward  a  justice  of  the  United 
States  Supreme  Court,  was  consulted  on  the  legal  questions 
involved.  He  stated  clearly  and  positively  that  the  Board 
of  Trustees,  a  corporate  body,  could  not  legally  delegate  any 
of  its  powers  to  the  General  Assembly  or  to  any  other  body. 
.  .  .  Our  Board  of  Trustees  adopted  the  by-law  (as  its 
charter  empowered  it  to  do)  in  words  like  the  following,  as 
nearly  as  I  can  remember :  *  "  Every  election  of  a  professor 
in  this  institution  shall  be  reported  to  the  next  General  As- 
sembly, and  if  the  said  Assembly  shall  by  vote  express  its 
disapprobation  at  the  election,  the  professorship  in  question 
shall  be  ipso  facto  vacant  from  and  after  such  veto  of  the 
General  Assembly ;  it  being  understood  that  in  such  case  it 
is  not  the  pleaswe  of  this  board  that  such  professor  shall  con- 
tinue in  office."  Judge  Matthews  said  that  this  by-law,  being 
adopted  by  the  Board  of  Trustees,  could  at  any  time  be  re- 
pealed by  the  board.  The  board  could  not  divest  itself  of 
this  power.  But  as  long  as  it  should  keep  that  rule  on  its 
own  book  and  govern  itself  by   it,  it   would   no   doubt   have 

*  I  give  the  resolution  of  the  Lane  Seminary  board  exactly  as  it  was 
passed. — Moore!  s  Diyest,  p.  384. 


ANOTHER  DECADE    OE  ITS  HISTORY.  139 

all  the  moral  effect  which  was  sought  for.  No  one  of  us 
imagined  that  it  could  have  any  further  legal  force  or  effect 
than  was  thus  defined  by  that  competent  legal  adviser. 

Dr.  E.  D.  Morris,  later  professor  of  Systematic 
Theology  at  Lane,  occupied  in  1870  the  chair  of 
Church  History  in  that  institution.  Dr.  Morris  has 
long  ranked  among  the  ablest  and  most  judicious 
writers  in  this  country  on  questions  of  ecclesiastical 
law  and  polity.  The  Evangelist  of  July  23,  1891, 
contained  a  striking  article  from  his  pen,  entitled 
"  The  Compact  of  1870."  The  following  are  extracts 
from  this  article : 

The  writer  does  not  hesitate  to  say  at  this  point,  that 
having  occasion  in  1871  to  look  into  the  matter  of  legality, 
so  far  as  Lane  was  concerned,  he  was  led  to  the  conclusion 
that,  in  the  eye  of  the  civil  law,  this  compact,  excellent  as 
it  was  in  intention,  was  wholly  unwarranted.  Indeed  it  was 
questionable  in  his  judgment  whether  it  lay  within  the  con- 
stitutional prerogative  of  the  General  Assembly  to  accept  such 
a  function  if  proffered  to  it,  and  the  recent  experience  has 
appeared  to  him  to  give  some  degree  of  reasonableness  to 
that  doubt.  But  on  the  civil  side  of  the  matter,  it  must  be 
ordinarily  clear  to  any  student  of  the  charter  of  that  institu- 
tion, that  its  trustees  are  the  sole  and  only  party  having,  or 
that  can  have,  or  gain,  any  authority  whatsoever  in  the  ap- 
pointment of  those  who,  in  whatever  capacity,  give  instruction 
in  it.  These  trustees  are  limited  by  but  one  condition,  that 
such  instructors  shall  be  in  good  standing  in  the  Presby- 
terian Church.  But  they  have  no  right  to  go  to  the  As- 
sembly  to    inquire    whether    such    or    such    a   teacher   is   in 


140  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

good  standing,  nor  has  the  Assembly  any  power,  by  mere 
resolution,  to  declare  the  standing  of  any  such  person  to  be 
either  good  or  bad.  They  might  go  to  the  records  of  some 
Presbytery  having  jurisdiction,  and  inquire  whether  the  per- 
son involved  Avas  rectus  in  curia  there;  but  they  could  not 
commit  to  such  a  body  the  matter  of  approving  or  disap- 
proving their  choice  of  him  as  a  teacher.  In  that  choice 
they  are  absolutely  and  forever  sovereign,  with  no  chartered 
right  to  delegate  their  responsibility  to,  or  even  share  it  in 
any  particular  with  any  other  body  whatever.  If  the  ques- 
tion were  one  of  financial  administration,  no  court  in  the 
land  would  justify  these  trustees  in  calling  on  the  General 
Assembly  to  guide  or  to  control  them  in  the  care  of  the 
funds  and  properties  of  that  institution,  and  the  same  legal 
principle  holds  no  less  truly  in  the  exercise  of  any  other  part 
of  their  corporate  trust.  The  board  of  Lane  Seminary  is  in 
every  particular,  and  at  all  times,  the  official  authority,  and 
there  can  be  no  other. 

Such  was  the  view  which  the  writer  was  compelled  to 
take  twenty  years  ago,  so  far  as  one  of  these  three  seminaries 
was  concerned,  and  the  recent  discussions  have  served  to  make 
it  evident  that  the  trustees  of  Auburn  and  Union  are  by  the 
charters  of  those  institutions  in  a  very  similar  position.  Look- 
ing at  the  matter  as  one  of  legal  principle  simply,  to  be 
determined  judicially,  is  it  not  clear  that  these  boards  of  trust 
could  not  hand  over  to  a  General  Assembly  a  right  of  ultimate 
control  over  any  of  the  endowments  committed  to  their  keep- 
ing ?  And  is  it  not  just  as  clear  that  they  could  not  ask  a 
General  Assembly  to  create  any  new  department,  or  pre- 
scribe any  change  in  the  methods  of  instruction,  or  to  choose 
or  even  nominate  a  professor  for  any  work  within  these  in- 
stitutions? All  such  matters  are  committed  by  law  to  these 
several   boards,  and    to  them  alone,  in    the  exercise  of    their 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  141 

corporate  sovereignty,  and  there  is  ground  for  the  query 
whether  their  failure  to  exercise  such  prerogative  in  the  way 
prescribed  by  their  respective  charters  would  not  ultimately 
work  a  forfeiture  of  the  funds  intrusted  to  their  'keeping. 
No  such  board  could,  for  example,  discharge  their  corps  of 
instructors  and  close  the  institution  indefinitely,  without  be- 
coming subject  to  civil  suit,  even  though  it  should  resolve 
to  commit  its  endowments  meanwhile  to  the  care  and  keep- 
ing of  the  General  Assembly.  And  the  same  principle  must 
apply  to  all  their  acts. 

Turning  from  the  question  of  legality  to  that  of  expediency 
and  desirableness,  we  enter  a  field  more  difficult  of  discussion, 
yet  one  where  a  dispassionate  examination  will  be  likely  to 
lead  thoughtful  men  into  substantial  agreement.  The  com- 
pact is  a  good  one  so  long  as  there  is  no  occasion  to  apply 
it.  As  a  simple  expression  of  good  will  and  cordial  confi- 
dence between  the  parties  it  is  admirable.  But  the  moment 
a  case  arises,  in  which  the  judgment  of  any  of  these  boards 
of  trust  goes  in  one  direction,  and  that  of  an  Assembly  goes 
in  another,  and  the  Assembly  overrules  such  board  by 
vetoing  its  action  and  displacing  a  teacher,  whom,  in  the 
exercise  of  its  chartered  prerogatives  and  its  corporate  wis- 
dom, it  has  chosen,  there  will  always  be  trouble ;  it  cannot 
be  otherwise.  If  the  Assembly  acts  without  giving  any 
reasons,  simply  interposing  its  final  negative  in  the  case,  it 
exposes  itself  at  once  to  the  charge  of  arbitrariness,  and  to 
those  immediately  affected  by  its  action,  that  action  inevit- 
ably savors  of  a  tyranny  to  which  any  born  Presbyterian 
will  find  it  hard  to  submit.  On  the  other  hand,  if  an 
Assembly  attempts  to  give  reasons  for  its  veto,  all  such 
reasons  must  resolve  themselves  into  two — the  lack  of  fitness 
to  teach,  and  the  lack  of  orthodoxy.  How  difficult  it  is  for 
an  Assembly  to  adduce  either  of  these  reasons  in  support  of 


142  T^HE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

its  decision  without  precipitating  serious  trouble,  will  be 
evident  on  very  slight  reflection. 

Suppose  the  reason  to  be  the  lack  of  fitness  to  teach,  what- 
ever may  be  the  special  nature  of  that  lack.  At  once  a 
series  of  questions  spring  up,  such  as  the  folloAving  :  AVhat 
constitutes  fitness  to  teach  in  a  theological  seminary  ?  What 
are  the  special  requisites  to  success  in  this  or  that  particular 
department  of  the  theological  study?  Is  the  Assembly  as 
well  qualified  as  the  particular  board  of  trust  to  ascertain 
whether  the  person  appointed  possesses  such  fitness,  and  in 
what  degree  ?  It  it  right  for  a  board,  after  it  has  chosen  a 
teacher  as  the  result  of  the  most  minute  investigation  it  can 
make,  to  let  its  deliberate  judgment  be  set  aside  by  the  veto 
of  a  body  every  way  less  prepared  to  decide  the  matter 
wisely?  Would  it  be  just  to  the  man  himself,  if,  after  he 
and  the  board  had  settled  the  matter,  and  a  call  had  been 
presented  and  accepted,  the  Assembly  should  step  in,  and 
with  only  such  knowledge  as  a  body  so  constituted  would 
possess,  should  hold  him  up  before  the  whole  Church  and 
before  the  world  as  a  person  incompetent  to  teach,  and  unfit 
for  the  place  to  which  he  had  been  chosen? 

So  serious  are  such  questions  that  it  is  doubtful  whether 
any  General  Assembly  could  be  induced  to  take  such  a  step 
on  this  ground.  The  case  must  be  an  exceptional  one  in- 
deed ;  and  the  veto  of  the  Assembly  would  become  not 
merely  a  remarkable  and  destructive  condemnation  of  the 
man,  but  also  a  verdict  of  gross  incompetency  against  the 
board  who  had  appointed  him.  And  the  case  would  be 
more  exceptional  still  if  the  chosen  instructor  had  already 
been  before  the  Church  for  many  years  in  some  similar 
capacity,  perchance  in  the  same  institution,  and  the  board 
that  chose  him  had  acted  on  the  basis  of  an  experimental 
acquaintance  with  his  abilities  as  a  teacher. 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  I43 

But  the  second  ground,  the  lack  of  orthodoxy,  is  a  hun- 
dred fold  more  perplexing.  Suppose  an  Assembly  should 
openly  say,  in  any  given  case  :  We  put  our  veto  on  this 
appointment,  because  in  our  judgment  the  chosen  instructor 
is  not  orthodox,  or  is  heretical,  according  to  our  standards. 
Suppose  it  should  vary  the  statement,  and  say  in  a  more 
guarded  form  :  We  do  not  condemn  this  man  as  a  minister, 
but  we  do  pronounce  his  teachings  doubtful  and  dangerous 
in  quality,  and  even  heretical,  and  on  this  ground  declare 
him  unfit  as  a  teacher.  The  Assembly  of  1836  has  estab- 
lished a  precedent  against  any  declaration  of  the  latter  sort, 
before  which  it  would  be  very  difficult  to  set  up  valid  oppo- 
sition. The  distinction  between  the  minister  and  professor, 
between  the  man  and  his  teachings,  vanishes  the  moment  it 
is  touched.  It  is  simply  impossible  to  pronounce  the  teach- 
ing heretical  without  condemning  the  man  also  ;  and  it  is 
simply  impossible  to  condemn  the  teacher  without  pronoun- 
cing judgment  on  the  minister  also.  But  this  is  clearly 
inadmissible  under  our  form  of  government.  The  obvious 
principle  in  the  case,  as  the  precedent  of  1836  affirms,  is 
that  the  Assembly  cannot  do  by  indirection  what  it  cannot 
do  directly  and  under  constitutional  warrant,  and  for  such  a 
declaration  and  distinction  as  this  there  can  be  no  constitu- 
tional warrant  whatever. 

The  declaration  of  the  first  sort  is  still  more  obviously 
inadmissible  so  long  as  the  Presbytery  to  which  such  a 
teacher  is  amenable,  regards  and  treats  him  as  orthodox. 
At  this  point  the  Assembly  is  powerless.  The  experience 
of  the  Southern  Church  in  the  case  of  Professor  Woodrow 
ought  to  be  a  sufficient  guide  and  warning  here.  It  is  not 
needful  that  the  person  implicated  be  already  undergoing 
judicial  examination  before  the  only  body  on  earth  compe- 
tent of  pronouncing   upon   him  ecclesiastically.      The  simple 


144  THE   UNION  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

fact  that  he  stands  iinimpeached  before  that  body,  is  enough 
to  forbid  the  Assembly  from  assuming  any  judicial  preroga- 
tives in  his  case.  No  difference  of  this  sort  can  be  recog- 
nized in  our  form  of  government,  between  one  minister  and 
another,  between  a  teacher  in  a  seminary  and  a  pastor  in 
his  pulpit,  and  any  attempt  to  set  up  such  a  distinction  can 
only  end  in  trouble.  In  a  word,  the  Assembly  is  abso- 
lutely precluded  by  our  constitution  from  pronouncing  an 
opinion  by  mere  resolution  upon  the  good  standing  of  even 
the  humblest  minister  in  our  Church. 

The  compact  of  1870  thus  betrays  its  weakness  in  what- 
ever aspect  it  may  be  regarded.  To  say  the  best  that  can 
be  said,  the  only  two  grounds  on  which  the  Assembly  can 
possibly  act  under  it  are  doubtful  and  dangerous  grounds. 
It  loads  the  Church  with  a  responsibility  which  is  pleasant 
enough  so  long  as  there  is  no  occasion  to  wield  it,  but  which 
is  as  certain  as  fate  to  bring  in  trouble  wherever  there  is 
fair  room  for  doubt  as  to  either  the  capacity  or  the  ortho- 
doxy of  any  candidate  for  professional  service.  The  expe- 
rience of  the  current  year  will  inevitably  be  repeated  in 
every  like  case  as  long  as  the  compact  lasts.  DiiFerences  of 
interpretation  as  to  its  intent  and  scope  will  always  arise, 
as  they  have  unhappily  sprung  up  in  this  instance.  Diver- 
sities of  judgment  and  more  or  less  dissatisfaction  with  the 
result  will  always  make  their  appearance,  and  whatever  may 
be  the  effect  upon  the  seminary  involved,  the  Church  is 
sure  to  suffer  much  more  than  it  gains. 

Add  to  this  calm  statement  that  the  "  compact "  of 
1870  was  no  legal  compact  at  all,  but  simply  a 
friendly  agreement,  and  Dr.  Morris'  argument  becomes 
irresistible. 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  145 

Let  US  now  turn  to  Auburn.  This  seminary,  unlike 
Lane  and  Union,  was  already  under  ecclesiastical  con- 
trol, namely,  that  of  adjacent  Synods.  Here  also  there 
was  doubt  and  scruple  resj)ecting  the  legal  aspect  of 
the  agreement  of  1870.  It  was  not  until  1873  that 
Auburn  consented  to  enter  into  the  arrangement. 
The  following  was  its  official  action  in  the  case : 

The  committee  to  whom  has  been  referred  the  question 
as  to  whether  the  proposal  of  the  General  Assembly  to 
submit  the  election  of  professors  in  the  seminary  to  the 
control  of  that  body  can  be  complied  with  without  a  change 
of  the  charter  of  this  institution,  would  respectfully  report, 
that  they  have  carefully  examined  said  charter,  and  sought 
legal  counsel  on  the  subject.  They  find  that  the  board  of 
commissioners  is  invested  with  the  sole  and  ultimate  author- 
ity to  appoint  its  professors,  and  they  cannot  legally  delegate 
this  power  to  ani/  other  body.  They  are,  however,  convinced 
of  the  fact  that  they  may  in  their  primary  action  make  a 
conditional  appointment,  subject  to  the  approval  of  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly,  and  that  the  right  of  such  approval  may  be 
accorded  to  and  recognized  from  that  body  without  necessa- 
rily interfering  with  their  ultimate  authority.  The  committee 
regard  the  seminary  as  standing  in  an  organic  relation  to  the 
General  Assetobly  through  its  conimissioners,  who  are  themselves 
ecclesiastically  amenable  to  the  action  of  that  body,  and  that, 
therefore,  there  is  a  generic  propriety  in  submitting  their 
appointments  conditionally  to  its  advisory  action. 

They  further  find  that  it  conies  within  the  sphere  of 
power  accorded  to  the  board  by  the  charter  that  they  make 
whatever  by-laws  and  regulations  they  may  regard  as  essen- 
tial  for    the    prosperity    of   the    seminary ;     and,    therefore, 


146  ^^^    UAVOX   THEOLOGICAL   SEMIXARY. 

deeming  it  desirable  that  tliis  institution  be  classed  on  an 
equal  basis  with  others  of  a  like  character  as  under  the 
patronage  and  supervision  of  the  General  Assembly,  the 
committee  would  hereby  present  and  commend  for  adoption 
by  the  board  the  following  by-law,  viz  :  "  That  hereafter 
the  appointments  of  professors  in  this  seminary  be  primarily 
made  conditional  upon  the  approval  of  the  General  Assembly, 
and  that  such  appointments  be  complete  and  authoritative 
only  upon  securing  such  approval." — [Minutes  of  the  Board 
of  Commissioners  of  Auburn  Seminary,  meeting  May  8,  1873.] 

(2)  But  while  at  Lane,  and,  later,  at  Auburn  also, 
the  agreement  of  1870  between  Union  Seminary  and 
the  General  Assembly  excited  at  the  time  serious 
doubt,  and  was  adopted  only  in  a  modified  form  upon 
the  advice  of  able  legal  counsel,  the  agreement  yet  met 
with  general  acquiescence  as  a  "  suitable  arrangement." 
For  twenty  years  it  remained,  as  we  have  seen,  quies- 
cent and  undisputed.  Nobody  challenged  either  its 
legality  or  its  expediency,  and  this  for  the  simple  rea- 
son that  the  power  with  which  it  clothed  the  Assembly 
was  never  used.  For  several  months  before  the  meet- 
ing of  the  Assembly  in  1891,  it  is  true,  the  veto  jwwer 
was  widely  discussed  in  the  religious  papers,  but  chiefly 
as  to  its  direct  bearing  upon  the  case  of  Dr.  Briggs, 
not  as  to  its  legality  or  its  wisdom.  Only  after  the 
action  of  the  General  Assembly  were  men's  eyes  op)ened 
to  discern  its  real  character.  That  action,  as  is  apt  to 
be  the  case  with  all  unfair  and  arbitrary  exercise  of 
power,  aroused  thoughtful  public  opinion  in  a  high  de- 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  147 

gree,  and  precipitated,  so  to  say,  conclusions  and  a 
judgment  touching  the  whole  matter  which  years  of 
ordinary  discussion  could  not  have  reached. 

The  public  reason  and  conscience,  under  certain  con- 
ditions, give  their  verdict  very  quickly,  and  in  a  way 
not  to  be  gainsaid.  It  was  so  in  the  present  instance. 
No  arguments  could  shut  again  the  eyes  which  were 
opened  so  wide  by  the  action  at  Detroit.  Not  alone 
Union  Seminary  and  its  oldest  and  best  friends,  but 
thousands  of  the  best  and  most  discerning  friends  of 
Christian  scholarship  and  reasonable  liberty  of  theo- 
logical inquiry  and  teaching  throughout  the  country, 
felt  that  a  hard  blow  had  been  struck  at  a  great  in- 
terest common  and  equally  dear  to  them  all.  It  would 
be  easy  to  illustrate  the  intensity  and  strength  of  this 
feeling  by  numberless  testimonies,  given  in  private  let- 
ters and  coming  from  all  parts  of  the  Union.  I  my- 
self read  scores  of  such  letters,  some  of  them  written 
by  men  noted  for  their  fine  culture,  their  piety,  their 
zeal  for  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,  and  their  unusual 
weight  of  character.  Of  the  public  testimonies  and 
protests  called  forth  by  the  action  at  Detroit,  time 
would  fail  me  to  speak  at  length.  Two  or  three  only 
must  suffice ;  and  I  give  them  just  as  they  appeared, 
without,  of  course,  holding  myself  responsible  for  all 
they  contain.  The  first  was  from  the  pen  of  the  Rev. 
C.  H.  Haydn,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  pastor  of  the  First  Presby- 
terian Church  of  Cleveland,  Ohio,  a  man  whose  name 
stands   for  whole-souled  devotion  to  the  kingdom  of 


148  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

Christ.  Dr.  Haydn  was  a  member  of  the  Assembly 
at  Detroit,  and  chairman  of  its  Standing  Committee  on 
Foreign  Missions.  Of  the  veto  of  Dr.  Briggs  he  said, 
addressing  his  own  peoj^le  : 

Had  the  Union  Seminary  acquiesced  in  this  veto,  I  question 
whether  a  twelvemonth  rroidd  have  gone  by  before  men  in  at  least 
three  other  seminaries  vould  have  been  called  to  account  in  one 
way  or  another,  and  liberty  within  the  lines  of  Holy  Scr'ipture 
would  have  had  a  set-back  from  which  it  ivonld  not  have  recovered 
in  a  quarter  of  a  century.  Princeton  would  have  triumphed 
all  along  the  hne,  and  nothing  could  well  be  worse  than  to 
have  Princeton  dominate  the  thinking  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church.  Already,  to  my  view,  it  begins  to  dawn  that  Prince- 
ton's ecclesiastical  lawyer  has  overreached  himself,  and  un- 
wittingly aided  the  very  cause  that  he  thought  to  put  under 
the  ban  of  the  Church. 

My  next  extract  is  from  a  letter  of  the  Kev.  Robert 
W.  Patterson,  D.D.,  of  Chicago,  then  past  his  seven 
and  seventieth  year.  Dr.  Patterson  was  a  venerated 
patriarch,  as  he  had  been  for  more  than  a  generation 
the  New  School  leader,  of  the  Presbyterian  Chnrch  in 
the  great  Northwest.  He  was  Moderator  of  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly  in  1859,  and  was  also  a  member  of  the 
New  School  'branch  of  the  Joint  Committee  on  Re- 
union. If  there  was  another  man  in  the  whole  Interior 
who  stood  higher  in  the  estimate  of  his  ministerial 
brethren,  or  whose  judgment  in  matters  relating  to  the 
order  and  prosperity  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  was 
entitled  to  greater  weight,  I  do  not  know  his  name. 
Here  is  what  Dr.  Patterson  said  : 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OE  ITS  HISTORY.  149 

I  am  distressed  about  our  seminaries.  The  ])lan  of  allow- 
ing the  General  Assembly  a  veto  on  appointments  is,  I  am 
persuaded,  unwise.  I  question  with  many  as  to  the  fitness 
of  Dr.  Briggs  for  the  place  to  which  he  was  elected  by  the 
Union  directors,  but  I  think  it  very  unsafe  for  the  Assembly 
to  veto  the  action  of  such  a  board,  especially  when  a  trial 
of  the  professor-elect  is  pending.  It  must  necessarily  be  in 
a  great  measure  a  prejudgment  of  the  judicial  case.  And  in 
most  instances  of  veto,  a  judicial  case  will  be  likely  to  follow 
or  to  be  actually  pending. 

Besides,  it  is  not  clear  that  in  ordinary  cases  the  Assem- 
bly is  as  competent  a  judge  as  a  well-selected  board.  More- 
over, if  the  Assembly  were  the  more  competent  body,  it 
could  not  fail  to  awaken  dangerous  antagonism  for  it  to 
exercise  such  authority.  It  is  not  like  a  veto  of  a  nomina- 
tion ;  it  is  a  veto  of  an  appointment,  so  far  as  the  board  can 
make  one,  and  it  is,  therefore,  an  injurious  judgment  against 
the  professor-elect  and  also  against  the  board  electing. 

And,  still  further,  it  is  likely  to  create  a  wide  sympathy 
for  the  injured  parties,  and  give  currency  to  the  very  errors 
which  it  was  designed  to  prevent.  This  is  evidently  so  in 
the  present  case,  in  which  grossly  partsian  action  has  been 
taken.  The  proper  check  upon  unwise  appointments  is  the 
discipline  of  the  Church,  if  serious  errors  are  taught  by  the 
appointee.  The  New  School  Church  never  lodged  any  veto 
power  in  the  Assembly.  Such  power  ought  not  now  to  be 
continued ;  it  is  virtually  the  trial  of  a  man  without  process 
and  without  forms  of  law.  Not  one  quotation  from  Dr. 
Briggs  was  made  in  the  debate  at  Detroit,  so  far  as  I  heard, 
and  no  reasons  were  given  in  the  final  judgment.  This  was 
monstrous. 

Along  with  this  emphatic  expression  of  oj^inion  I 


150  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMLXARY. 

will  quote  some  j^assages  in  the  same  strain  from  a  pri- 
vate letter  of  Dr.  Patterson  : 

I    have    not    liked    Dr.  Briggs'  utterances,  especially  the 
tone  of  them.      But  I  regard  the   action  of  Princeton  in  the 
matter   as    a    startling  illustration    of   the    grievous    injustice 
that    will    always    be  liable   to  be   done    to  a    professor-elect 
and  to  a   seminary,  so  long    as   the   power   of  veto   remains 
with  the  Assembly.     It  is  a  sort  of  lynch-laM'   condemnation 
on  technicality,  without  trial  and  with  no  reasons  responsiblv 
alleged,  but  with  utterly  untrue  reasons  implied  or  assumed. 
.     .     .     I  see  no  escape   from    a    like    injustice    in    any   case 
where  a  veto  can  be   plausibly  demanded.      First,  get    up    a 
clamor,  and  then   have    a  one-sided    committee   appointed   to 
report  that  something  must  be  done  at  once,  or  the   Assem- 
bly will  be  held  as  approving,  and  give    no   reasons,  leaving 
every  man  to  sustain  the  report  for  his   own    reasons,  or   on 
the  ground  of  his  prepossessions.     This  is  a  receipt  for  crush- 
ing out  any  and  every  appointee  that  happens  to  incur   pop- 
ular displeasure  on   a    question   about    which    the   Church    is 
sensitive.     How  easy  to  apply  the  guillotine  in   every  such 
case  !  and  if  the  candidate  for  decapitation  cannot  be   easily 
answered  on  the  main  points,  the  motive   is   greater  to   dis- 
patch liim  by  vofc.9.     .     .     I  have  written    simply  because    I 
feel  like  it.     I  do  not  agree  with  Dr.  Briggs  on  some  impor- 
tant   questions,    but    I    would    not,  if  I    could,  overrule   the 
directors  in  regard  to  any  such  question,  and  no  more  would 
I  concede  this  right  to  the  Assembly.     We  cannot  afford   to 
have  our  able  men  brushed  aside  by  popular  clamor,  even  if 
on  some  points  they  may  have  gone  too  far.     If  they  become 
heretics,  let  their  heresy  be  jndicialhi  provaJ.     But  let  not  the 
Assembly  prejudge  indirectly    its   future    disciplinary   action. 
The  day  has  passed  for  .scftlinc/  critical  questions  by  votes  of 


ANOrHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  151 

councils  or  assemblies.  But  it  is  possible  to  distress  and  dis- 
tract a  whole  denomination  for  a  generation  by  attem])ting 
this  impossibility.  The  numbers  will  increase  of  those  who 
will  say  with  Dr.  Van  Dyke  :  "  If  we  cannot  have  orthodoxy 
and  liberty  both,  let  us  have  liberty." 

I  will  give  one  more  testimony  and  protest.  It  is 
from  a  letter  of  the  Rev.  B.  M.  Hamilton,  D.D., 
addressed  to  Dr.  Field,  editor  of  The  Evangelist,  and 
dated  Louisville,  Ky.,  June  5,  1891.  Dr.  Hamilton 
for  more  than  half  a  generation  was  pastor  of  the  old 
Scotch  Church  in  Fourteenth  Street,  New  York,  where 
he  won  the  confidence,  resjDCct  and  love  of  his  minis- 
terial brethren  and  of  all  the  churches  by  his  charming 
personal  qualities,  by  his  fine  scholarship,  and  by  his 
solid  Christian  character  and  services  : 

The  outside  public  have  received  a  very  definite  impres- 
sion that  our  highest  ecclesiastical  court  has  acted  unfairly 
and  unjustly  towards  one  of  our  foremost  Biblical  scholars. 
The  issue  will  not  increase  the  respect  of  the  world  for  the 
Presbyterian  Church.  She  has  suifered  immensely  more  than 
Dr.  Briggs.  Thoughtful  men  are  saying — I  have  heard  them 
— that  our  Church  will  not  allow  her  scholars  to  make  a  thor- 
ough study  of  the  Bible  by  the  modern  scientific  methods 
unless  they  first  bind  themselves  to  come  to  no  conclusions, 
save  such  as  are  acceptable  to  a  certain  theological  school  in 
the  Church.  Such  an  impression —  and  it  exists  and  is  spread- 
ing— is  calamitous,  not  to  the  Church  only,  but  to  religion 
itself.  Add  to  this  the  feeling  which  is  abroad,  that  the  As- 
sembly has  condemned  an  eminent  professor  without  assign- 
ing any  reason  therefor,  and  on  the    report   of  a   committee. 


152  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

not  a  member  of  wliich  was  a  friend  of  the  professor  or  of 
Union  Seminary,  and  the  injury  to  the  reputation  of  our 
Church  cannot  be  calculated. 

I  have  been  on  terms  of  intimate  friendship  with  Dr. 
Briggs  for  years.  I  have  lived  with  him,  I  have  walked  the 
mountains  with  him,  I  have  talked  with  him  for  hours  to- 
gether, and  I  say  deliberately  that  he  has  done  more  to  make 
the  Bible  a  real  living  book  to  me,  the  true  Word  of  God, 
than  all  other  ministers  and  teachers  I  have  known  in  the 
whole  course  of  my  life.  His  friendship  is  one  of  the  things 
for  which  I  shall  always  have  reason  to  be  thankful.  In  my 
judgment  Dr.  Briggs  is  the  most  inspiring  teacher  of  the 
Bible  our  Church  possesses.  No  vote  of  any  Assembly  can 
impair  his  reputation  among  the  Biblical  scholars  of  Chris- 
tendom. 

(3)  The  action  at  Detroit  was  an  eye-opener  with 
regard  to  the  un- wisdom  of  trying  to  regulate  theolog- 
ical 023inion  and  teaching  by  popular  vote.  The  instant 
the  attempt  is  actually  made,  its  futility  is  demon- 
strated. I  doubt  if  the  vote  at  Detroit  really  moved 
theological  opinion  a  hair's  breadth.  Nor  was  it  at 
all  more  effective  in  the  matter  of  theological  instruc- 
tion. Unless  further  enlightened  respecting  divine 
truth  by  deeper  study  and  fresh  inspirations  of  the 
Eternal  Spirit,  Princeton,  and  Union,  and  Lane,  and 
all  the  rest,  continued  to  teach  in  1892  wduit  they 
taught  in  1890.  As  aforetime,  they  took  counsel  of 
Holy  Scripture  and  of  the  venerable  standards  of  the 
Presbyterian  Church,  as  also  of  the  old  creeds  of 
Christendom.     They  still  read  diligently  the  writings 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  I53 

of  the  great  masters  of  divinity,  whether  of  ancient,  or 
medieval,  or  later  ages ;  they  tried  to  discern  the  signs 
of  the  times;  and  they  exercised  themselves  in  working 
out  more  fully  their  own  honest  thought.  But  they 
took  very  little  note  of  what  was  said,  or  voted,  on  the 
subject  at  Detroit.  When  in  1845,  at  Cincinnati,  the 
Old  School  General  Assembly,  led  by  some  of  the 
strongest  men  in  that  branch  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church,  decided  by  a  vote  of  173  to  8 — a  majority  not 
of  7  to  1,  as  at  Detroit,  but  of  more  than  20  to  1 — that 
what  was  called  "  Komish  Baptism  "  is  spurious  and  un- 
christian. Dr.  Charles  Hodge  of  Princeton,  in  spite  of 
the  brilliant  Dr.  Thornwell,  and  of  Dr.  L,  N.  Rice, 
and  of  Dr.  Junkin,  and  of  nearly  the  whole  Assembly, 
not  only  went  right  on  teaching  his  students  the  old 
Protestant  view,  but  he  attacked  the  decision  of  the 
Assembly  as  wrong  in  fact  and  false  in  doctrine,  dem- 
onstrating, with  most  cogent  reasoning,  that,  notwith- 
standing her  errors,  the  Church  of  Kome  is  still  a 
branch  of  the  Christian  Church,  and  that  baptism  duly 
administered  by  her,  is  Christian  baptism.  Dr.  Hodge 
knew  very  well  that  if  such  questions  were  to  be  decided 
by  a  majority  vote  in  a  j^opular  Assembly,  instead  of 
being  decided  according  to  the  truth  of  history  and  the 
voice  of  Scripture,  the  occupation  of  the  theological 
professor  is  well-nigh  clean  gone  forever.  This  veto 
power  is  like  one  of  those  terrible  pieces  of  new  ord- 
nance of  which  we  have  read  lately  so  much.  It  is  not 
only  a   most  formidable  instrument  for  destroying  an 


154  ^"^^    C'X/O.V   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

enemy,  but  of  self-destruction  as  well,  unless  handled 
with  consummate  skill.  Setting  five  hundred  men, 
mostly  untrained  for  the  task,  to  firing  it  off  all  together, 
even  under  the  direction  of  an  ecclesiastical  boss  or 
expert,  is  extremely  dangerous  and  against  all  the  les- 
sons of  even  worldly  prudence. 

Do  I  mean,  then,  that  it  is  no  function  of  the  Pres- 
byterian Church  to  bear  faithful  witness  against  preva- 
lent errors  in  doctrine  and  practice,  or,  if  necessary,  in 
the  way  of  godly  discipline,  to  put  upon  them  the 
stamp  of  her  censure  and  condemnation  ?  No,  that  is 
not  my  meaning.  It  seems  to  me  one  of  the  highest 
functions  of  a  church  of  Jesus  Christ  to  bear  constant, 
earnest  witness  for  Him  and  His  truth,  and  to  put  the 
mark  of  her  disapproval  upon  all  errors  contrary 
thereto.  This  is  one  great  end  for  which  the  Church 
exists  in  the  world.  When  she  ceases  to  be  a  Avitness- 
bearer  and  the  enemy  alike  of  false  doctrine  and  evil 
j)ractice,  her  glory  is  departed.  The  question  is : 
How  shall  she  best  fulfil  this  duty  ?  And  here  there  is 
need  of  the  wisest  discrimination,  of  large  experience, 
of  the  amplest  knowledge,  of  much  self-restraint,  and 
of  Christian  justice,  candor,  and  magnanimity  in  their 
finest  exj)ression. 

It  is  far  from  my  meaning,  I  repeat,  that  the  Presby- 
terian Church,  or  any  other  church  of  Christ,  is  not 
bound  to  hold  fast  to  the  faith  once  delivered  to  the 
saints ;  to  stand  up  for  soundness  both  of  doctrine  and 
morals;  to  bear  witness  against  error;  and  to  be  very 


ANOTHER   DECADE   OE  ITS  HISTORY.  155 

jealous  for  the  honor  of  God  and  His  ins^^ired  oracles. 
No  church  can  here  exceed  the  measure  of  her  duty. 
Nor  do  I  in  the  least  question  that  the  Presbyterian 
Church,  in  the  performance  of  this  solemn  duty,  may 
often  speak  and  act  most  effectually  through  the  voice 
and  votes  of  the  representative  Assembly.  The  po2:)u- 
lar  voice  and  vote,  thus  expressed,  is  a  ruling  principle 
in  our  American  system  of  republican  government ; 
and  it  is  a  ruling  principle  no  less  in  American  Pres- 
byterianism — the  source  in  large  measure  of  its  elas- 
ticity, freedom,  and  working  power.  Nobody  shall 
surpass  me  in  admiring  it  and  its  splendid  achieve- 
ments. 

But  alike  in  the  civil  sj)here  and  in  that  of  religion 
there  are  some  things,  which  in  their  very  nature,  be- 
long to  the  domain  and  jurisdiction,  not  of  the  many, 
but  rather  of  the  select  few.  There  are  questions  in 
the  civil  order  which  the  judges  of  the  land,  not  the 
legislators,  alone  are  authorized  and  competent  to  de- 
cide. And  so  in  the  religious  sphere  there  are  matters 
which  only  learned  divines  and  scholars — specially 
trained,  chosen,  and  set  apart  for  the  purpose — are 
qualified  to  pass  judgment  upon.  Such,  for  example, 
are  many  of  the  questions  raised  by  what  is  called  the 
higher  or  literary  criticism  of  the  Bible.  No  popular 
vote,  however  honest  and  intelligent,  can  decide  them  ; 
nor  are  ordinary  scholars,  however  learned,  competent 
to  decide  them.  They  must  be  decided,  if  at  all,  by 
the  ablest  sort  of  trained  minds,  just  as  there  are  ques- 


156  THE    UNION    THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

tions  in  law,  in  finance,  in  every  department  of  science', 
which  only  experts  of  the  highest  class  are  qualified  to 
settle  for  us. 

I  have  thus  endeavored  to  consider  the  action  at 
Detroit  in  the  case  of  Dr.  Briggs  in  its  bearing  upon 
Union  Seminary  and  upon  the  Presbyterian  Church. 
It  has  been  my  aim  to  tell  the  truth,  so  far  as  possible, 
and  nothing  but  the  truth.  And  it  has  been  my  aim, 
also,  to  do  this  in  a  frank  and  Christian  way.  Cer- 
tainly, it  would  have  been  much  easier  to  write  in  a 
freer  style.  If  now  and  then  I  have  used  language 
savoring  of  severity,  or  even  ridicule,  it  is  because  the 
truth  seems  to  me  to  demand  such  language.  No  rea- 
sonable man  could  have  supposed  that  the  friends  of 
Union  Seminary  were  going  to  keep  silent,  or  that 
when  they  did  speak  they  would  speak  with  bated 
breath.  If  trained  in  no  special  awe  of  a  General  As- 
sembly, they  did  stand  in  awe  of  God  and  His  truth, 
of  Christian  justice,  and  of  that  glorious  liberty  where- 
with their  divine  Master  had  made  them  free. 

Whatever  hostile  feeling  prevailed  at  Detroit  and 
in  the  struggle  that  followed  against  Union  Seminary, 
was,  as  I  believe,  largely  the  effect  of  simple  ignorance  or 
misapprehension.  Union  Seminary  stood  firm  on  her 
original  foundations  as  an  institution  of  Christian  the- 
ology in  the  service  of  the  Presbyterian  Churcli  and  of 
the  Church  Universal.  Taking  the  inspired  AVord 
of  God  as  her  rule  of  faith  and  practice,  she  was  striv- 
ing in  all  things  for  the  faith  and  furtherance  of  the 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  I57 

Gospel  ;  first  in  our  own  land,  and  then  over  all  the 
earth.  These  were  her  ambitions  and  she  has  no 
other.  With  every  other  school  of  divinity,  of  what- 
ever name,  she  desired  to  keep  step  to  the  music  of  the 
whole  Church  militant  in  fighting  the  battles  of  truth 
and  righteousness,  here  and  everywhere.  Especially 
did  she  desire  to  march  and  fight  in  fellowship  with  all 
other  seminaries  of  the  Presbyterian  Church.  She  was 
ready,  as  she  is  still  ready,  to  say  to  them,  in  the  words 
of  Henry  B.  Smith, — words  penned  before  the  reunion, 
but  still  fresh  and  true  as  ever : 

Let  us  advance  with  open  brow  to  meet  the  greater  ques- 
tions which  are  fast  advancing  to  meet  us.  Let  us  not  make 
so  much  account  of  Old  School  and  New  School ;  and  even 
if  we  believe  the  substance  of  the  Old  is  better,  let  us  not 
deny  that  the  earnestness,  the  philosophic  spirit,  the  advanc- 
ing movement,  the  wider  aims  of  the  New,  are  of  inestimable 
good.  Who  can  so  afford  to  be  patient  as  the  orthodox,  who 
know  that  the  right  faith  will  in  the  end  surely  triumph. 
Let  us  eschew  the  arts  of  intrigue,  of  defamation,  and  innu- 
endo. These  are  easily  learned.  They  are  the  offspring  of 
fear  or  of  hate.  They  show  a  timorous  or  a  dogmatic  spirit. 
Let  us  not  deny  until  we  understand,  or  insult  feelings  be- 
fore we  know  their  reason,  for  it  is  easier  to  be  extreme  than 
to  be  candid,  to  denounce  than  to  examine.  In  the  spirit  of 
love  and  wisdom  let  us  maintain  cogency  of  argument,  energy 
of  faith,  and  urgency  of  zeal. 


158  ^-^^   UNION   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 


CHAPTER   III. 


THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS. SKETCH  OF  THE  CON- 
FLICT BETWEEN  UNION  SEMINARY  AND  THE  GEN- 
ERAL    ASSEMBLY. THE     ECCLESIASTICAL     VETO. 

POSITION      OF       THE      ASSEMBLY'S      COMMITTEE     OF 

CONFERENCE. ANTAGONISTIC      POSITION      OF       THE 

SEMINARY. IMMEDIATE      ISSUE      OF       THE      STRUG- 
GLE.  A     TRUCE. 


We  come  now  to  the  parting  of  the  ways.  The  ac- 
tion of  the  Assembly  at  Detroit  Avas  regarded  by  the 
Board  of  Directors  and  faculty  of  Union  Seminary, 
and  by  the  friends  of  the  institution  generally,  as  most 
unwise  and  unjust.  Those  who  understood  the  case 
saw  at  a  glance,  that  the  seminary  was  in  imminent 
j)eril  of  falling  a  prey  to  what  Henry  B.  Smith  in  his 
letter  to  me,  already  quoted,  called  the  "  consistent 
domineering  Presbyterianism."  But  how  to  extricate 
it  from  this  peril  was  not  yet  so  plain.  The  best  solu- 
tion of  the  problem,  however,  soon  began  to  appear ; 
and  at  the  close  of  the  final  meeting  of  the  Board  of 
Directors  with  the  Assembly's  Committee  of  Confer- 
ence, it  was  in  full  process  of  evolution. 

(«)  flie  interpretation  of  the  agreement  of  1S70  by 
the  Board  of  Directors  of  Union  Seminary. 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  I59 

The  Assembly  at  Detroit,  as  we  have  seen,  regarded 
the  agreement  of  1870  not  only  as  in  the  strictest  sense 
a  legal  compact,  or  contract,  but  also  as  involving  the 
right  to  veto  a  transfer  no  less  than  an  original  elec- 
tion. And  just  here  arose  the  trouble.  Had  Dr. 
Briggs  been  called  to  the  new  chair  of  Biblical  Theol-" 
ogy  from  the  pastorate,  or  from  another  institution, 
and  had  his  appointment  been  disapproved  by  the 
General  Assembly,  no  question  of  its  jurisdiction  in 
the  case  would  have  been  raised  by  the  directors  of 
Union  Seminary.  Whatever  their  disappointment, 
and  however  unfair  or  unwise  they  might  have  felt  it 
to  be,  the  board  would  have  bowed  at  once  to  the 
Assembly's  decision.  In  other  words,  while  the  agree- 
ment lasted  it  would  have  been  regarded  by  them  as 
morally  binding.  But  it  so  happened  that  for  some 
seventeen  years  Dr.  Briggs  had  been  a  professor  in 
the  Union  Theological  Seminary.  He  was  simply 
transferred  to  another  chair.  And  this  transfer,  as 
the  Board  of  Directors  held,  was  merely  an  exercise  of 
the  authority  given  them  by  the  constitution  of  the 
seminary  not  only  to  "  appoint "  all  professors  and 
teachers,  but  also  to  "  determine  their  duties ;  "  and 
was  not,  therefore,  subject  to  the  Assembly's  disap- 
proval. Hence  the  conflict,  which  so  disturbed  the 
peace  of  the  Presbyterian  Church. 

As  I  have  said  already,  the  agreement  of  1870  for 
twenty  years  required  no  interpretation.  It  had  ex- 
cited no  controversy    and  no  hostility.     Hardly  any- 


160  THE   UNION  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

body,  particularly  among  the  younger  generation, 
knew  aught  about  it.  Thousands  of  our  ministers, 
ruling  elders  and  private  members  had,  probably, 
never  heard  its  name.  So  far  as  it  gave  to  the  semi- 
naries, hitherto  under  Assembly  control,  the  privilege 
of  electing  their  own  professors  its  operation  had  been 
quiet,  normal  and  highly  satisfactory.  So  far  as  it 
contained  in  the  veto  power  possibilities  of  harm,  either 
to  the  Church  or  to  the  seminaries,  the  evil  lay  dor- 
mant and  unsuspected.  The  action  at  Detroit  first 
revealed  its  real  character. 

This  point  seems  to  me  especially  noteworthy.  A 
negative  by  the  General  Assembly  on  the  election  of 
both  professors  and  trustees  had,  indeed,  existed  in  the 
case  of  the  Union  Theological  Seminary  in  Virginia 
as  early  as  1826.  And  the  term  "  veto "  itself  was 
familiar  as  an  ecclesiastical  term  to  all  readers  of  the 
Life  of  Dr.  Chalmers  and  of  the  story  of  the  Free 
Church  of  Scotland.  The  "  Veto  Law  "  passed  by  the 
General  Assembly  in  1834  under  the  lead  of  Dr. 
Chalmers,  j)layed  an  important  part  in  the  struggle, 
which  issued  in  the  great  disruption  of  1843.  I  am 
not  sure,  however,  that  the  term  "  veto  "  was  employed 
even  in  the  case  of  the  Union  Theological  Seminary  in 
Virginia ;  nor  can  I  find  that  the  negative  of  the 
General  Assembly  on  all  appointments  of  professors 
or  trustees  in  that  institution,  was  ever  actually  used. 
If  used,  it  could  hardly  have  attracted  public  notice,  or 
involved  any  conflict  of  theological  opinion.     Still,  the 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  161 

connection  of  Union  Seminary  in  Virginia  with  Prince- 
ton was  close  and  almost  personal.  It  was  a  sort  of 
family  connection  ;  very  likely,  therefore,  the  Assem- 
bly's negative  on  the  election  of  its  professors  and 
trustees  may,  in  1870,  have  suggested  to  the  professors 
at  Princeton  a  similar  negative  in  the  case  of  their  own 
institution.  It  is  to  be  carefully  noted  that  in  the  re- 
port of  the  Joint  Committee  on  Reunion  made  in  1867, 
in  that  of  1868,  and  in  that  of  the  Joint  Committee  of 
Conference  in  1869,  the  word  "  veto "  never  occurs. 
The  only  instance  of  its  use  between  1866  and  1870, 
that  I  have  been  able  to  discover,  is  in  the  letter  of  Dr. 
A.  A.  Hodge  to  Henry  B.  Smith,  dated  December  29, 
1867,  in  which  he  proposed  as  a  "  condition  of  union  " 
that  "  the  right  of  peremptory  veto  "  on  the  election  of 
professors  in  all  the  seminaries  should  be  given  to  the 
General  Assembly,  and  urged  Professor  Smith  to 
recommend  this  "  compromise "  to  the  New  School 
branch  of  the  Joint  Committee  on  Reunion.  But  it 
should  be  remembered  that  this  letter,  as  Dr.  Hodge 
said,  was  written  "  without  consultation  with  or  the 
knowledge  of  a  single  person,"  and  that  jirobably  no 
eye  save  Dr.  Smith's  ever  saw  it  until  after  his  death.''' 
To  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  that  period,  whether 
of  the  Old  or  of  the  New  School  branch,  the  ecclesias- 
tical veto  was  certainly  a  novel  thing,  and  the  power, 

*  I  have  examined  carefully  the  correspondence  which  Dr.  Adams  and 
Dr.  Beatty  carried  on  with  each  other  between  1866  and  1870, — a  corres- 
pondence full  of  details  and  suggestions  touching  the  reunion  negotiations 
— but  the  word  "veto"  docs  not  occur  in  it  from  beginning  to  end. 


162  T^HE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

expressed  and  now  understood  by  it,  was  quite  as  un- 
familiar as  the  term.  I  will  venture  to  refer  to  my  own 
exjierience  in  illustration.  Although  a  director  of 
Union  Seminary  in  1870,  and,  as  such,  in  close  confi- 
dential relations  with  my  associates  in  the  board,  Drs. 
Adams,  Stearns  and  Hatfield, — all  members  of  the 
Joint  Committee ;  and  though  myself  taking  an  active 
part  in  the  memorable  action  on  May  9  and  16  of  that 
year,  it  never  crossed  my  mind  that  instead  of  promo- 
ting mutual  confidence  and  harmony,  which  was  its 
"sole  object,"  the  veto  power  on  the  election  of  profes- 
sors would,  in  actual  exercise,  have  just  the  contrary 
effect.  I  say  the  veto  upon  the  election  of  professors, 
for  Mr.  D.  Willis  James'  earnest  protest  against  con- 
ceding it  to  the  Assembly  in  the  election  of  directors, 
did  startle  me,  and  led  to  my  motion  for  an  adjourn- 
ment from  May  9  to  May  16,  when  that  feature  of  the 
plan  was  dropped.  Let  me  add  further,  that  not  till 
after  the  20th  of  January,  1891,  when  Dr.  Briggs' 
utterances,  on  being  inducted  into  the  chair  of  Biblical 
Theology,  began  to  call  forth  such  sharp  censure 
throughout  the  Presbyterian  Church,  did  it  distinctly 
occur  to  me  that  his  transfer  to  that  chair,  on  being  re- 
j)orted  to  the  General  Assembly,  might  possibly  be 
regarded  as  equivalent  to  an  original  election,  and  as 
such  encounter  the  Assembly's  veto. 

My  own  state  of  mind  with  regard  to  the  Agreement 
of  1870,  was,  T  believe,  substantially  that  of  the  Board 
of  Directors  of  Union  Seminary,  as  late  as  the  begin- 


ANOTHER   DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  163 

ning  of  1891.  That  it  was  also  the  only  view  taken  in 
the  Presbyterian  Church,  so  far  at  least  as  any  distinct 
view  prevailed,  I  am  not  prepared  to  assert.  On  the 
contrary,  I  incline  now  to  think  that  a  different  view 
existed  though  mostly  latent  and  unexpressed.  Other- 
wise, it  is  not  so  easy  to  account  for  the  very  decided 
opinion  on  the  subject  which  declared  itself  far  and 
wide  after  the  publication  of  Dr.  Briggs'  address,  and 
then  suddenly  crystallized  at  Detroit  into  such  a  deter- 
mined and  overwhelming  vote  of  disapproval.  What- 
ever may  have  been  the  influence  of  misunderstanding, 
of  theological  alarm,  of  misrepresentation  in  bringing 
about  that  result,  it  is  fair  to  assume  that  the  result  was 
brought  about  also  in  part  by  honest  belief  and  convic- 
tion. Or,  to  express  it  in  another  way,  different  eccle- 
siastical theories  and  habits  of  thought,  whether  inher- 
ited or  acquired,  largely  shaped  the  result ;  and  in 
order  to  do  justice  to  both  sides  this  point  must  be  kept 
in  mind. 

The  position  of  the  Board  of  Directors  in  regard  to 
the  transfer  of  Dr.  Briggs  to  the  new  chair  of  Biblical 
Theology,  is  most  clearly  shown  in  its  successive  con- 
ferences with  the  committee  of  the  General  Assembly. 
That  committee  consisted  of  eight  ministers  and  seven 
ruling  elders,  namely  : 

3Iiniste7's:  Ruling  Elders: 

Francis  L.  Patton,  D.D.,  LL.D.,       George  Junkin, 
John  H.  Worcester,  Jr.,  D.  D.,  John  J.  McCook, 

William  E.  Moore,  D.D.,  Russell  Murdoek,  M.D., 


164  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY, 

3Iinisters:  Ruling  Elders: 

William  H.  Roberts,  D.D.,  George  H.  Ely, 

Samuel  J.  Niccolls,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Samuel  J.  Wardell, 

Herrick  Johnson,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Edward  P.  Durant, 

John  S.  Macintosh,  D.D.,  George  U.  Ketcham, 
George  Alexander,  D.D. 

All  the  members  of  the  committee,  excepting  Dr. 
Worcester,  were  present  at  the  first  meeting,  which  was 
held  at  the  seminary,  in  New  York,  on  the  28tli  and 
29th  of  October,  1891.  The  time  was  taken  up  partly 
in  direct  conference  ;  partly  in  separate  discussion  in 
the  board  and  in  the  committee.  President  Hastings 
acted  as  the  leading  spoksman  on  the  side  of  the  direc- 
tors ;  President  Patton  on  the  side  of  the  committee. 
One  of  the  first  points  made  respected,  very  naturally, 
the  attitude  of  the  board  touching  the  present  validity 
of  the  agreement  of  1870.  Did  the  board  still  hold 
itself  bound  by  that  agreement  ?  The  board  replied  in 
the  affirmative.  This  answer  oi^ened  the  way  for  fur- 
ther inquiry  and  discussion.  At  the  close  of  the  meet- 
ing of  the  board  and  the  Committee  of  Conference  on 
the  29th  of  October,  an  adjournment  was  agreed  to 
until  another  meeting  should  be  called  by  the  board. 
Thus  far  little  had  been  accomplished  by  the  two  par- 
ties beyond  friendly  greetings  and  a  better  under- 
standing of  each  other's  views  and  temper.  The 
following  papers  passed  between  the  board  and  the 
Committee  of  Conference  at  the  meeting  in  October, 
1891. 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  165 


PAPER    READ    BY    DOCTOR    HASTINGS    AT    THE    CONFERENCE, 
ON     BEHALF     OF     THE     BOARD     OF     DIRECTORS,    OCTOBER 

28th,   1891. 

This  board  will  consider  carefully  what  the  Assembly's 
committee  has  said  to  us.  In  courtesy  to  this  committee, 
we  have  postponed  the  consideration  of  some  questions  which 
have  been  pressed  upon  our  attention.  We  have  felt  that  it 
is  due  to  the  Assembly  that  we  should  first  hear  what  its 
appointed  representatives  might  have  to  say.  We  shall  in 
due  time  forward  to  this  committee  through  our  chairman, 
our  reply  to  what  you  have  said  to  us. 

Meanwhile,  I  am  requested  to  explain  to  this  Committee 
of  Conference,  the  views  of  our  board  with  reference  to  the 
transfer  of  Dr.  Briggs,  by  reading  a  carefully  prepared  state- 
ment upon  that  subject,  which  w^as  presented  to  our  board 
on  the  12th  of  May  last,  before  the  late  meeting  of  the  As- 
sembly at  Detroit.  This  paper  is  a  part  of  the  report  of 
the  Executive  Committee  to  the  board. 

MEANING   OF   THE    ACTION    OF    1870. 

Your  committee  have  considered  the  question  of  the  rela- 
tion of  this  seminary  to  the  General  Assembly,  in  regard  to 
which  there  has  lately  been  much  discussion  in  the  public 
prints.  The  report  that  a  large  number  of  Presbyterians  have 
memorialized  the  approaching  General  Assembly  to  disap- 
prove authoritatively  of  the  recent  transfer  of  one  of  our  pro- 
fessors to  the  new  department  of  Biblical  Theology,  indicates, 
as  your  committee  believe,  a  misunderstanding  in  regard  to 
the  authority  of  the  Assembly  in  this  matter.  It  is  not  to 
be  assumed  in  advance,  that  the  As!?*embly  itself  will  miscon- 
ceive the  extent  of  its    prerogative,  and  your    committee   do 


166  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

not  deem  it  eitlier  necessary  or  expedient  that  any  resolutioii 
in  regard  to  it  shonld  be  transmitted  to  that  body. 

Nor  in  their  jndgement  would  it  be  advisable,  even  though 
the  Assembly  should  proceed  to  take  formal  action,  for  the 
board  to  raise  at  this  time  an  issue  in  regard  to  which  there 
might  possibly  be  discussion  and  grave  differences  of  opinion; 
but  inasmuch  as  the  recollection  of  those  who  were  members 
of  this  board  in  1870,  when  this  seminary  voluntarily  divested 
itself  of  a  measure  of  its  independence,  is  distinct  as  to  the 
limits  of  its  concession  then  made,  and  inasmuch  as  the  board 
has  always  clearly  distinguished  in  its  mode  of  procedure  be- 
tween the  election  of  a  new  professor  and  the  transference 
of  a  member  of  its  faculty  from  one  department  of  instruc- 
tion to  another,  your  committee  recommend  that  in  order  to 
prevent  future  misconception  of  the  understanding  of  the 
board  in  this  matter,  the  following  minute  be  entered  upon 
its  records,  viz.: 

Inasmuch  as  there  appears  to  be  in  some  quarters  a  mis- 
conception of  the  meaning  and  intent  of  the  action  taken  by 
this  board  in  1870,  whereby  all  appointments  of  professors 
were  to  be  reported  to  the  General  Assembly ;  and  further 
providing  that  no  such  appointment  should  be  considered  as 
a  complete  election  if  disapproved  by  a  majority  vote  of  the 
Assembly  ;  this  board  would  hereby  record  its  conviction  that 
the  said  action  of  1870  was  then  understood  and  has  been 
ever  since  understood  by  this  board,  to  refer  to  the  election 
of  additional  members  of  the  faculty,  and  not  to  the  assign- 
ment to  new  departments  of  instruction,  of  j^rofessors  already 
in  office  or  to  their  transfer  from  one  chair  to  another,  as 
may  appear  expedient  to  the  board. 

To  this  may  be  added  the  simple  statement  that  before 
the  late  meeting  of  the  Assembly,  this  board  had  carefully 
investigated  the  charges  which  the  Presbyteries  were  bring- 
ing against  Dr.  Briggs,  and  received  from  him  a  clear  and 
positive  denial  of  each  charge  on  the  ground  of  wliich  de- 
nials the  board  resolved  to  sustain   him,  saving  that  "  we  will 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OE  ITS  HISTORY.  -[{SJ 

stand  by  him  heartily  on  the  ground  of  this  report/'  (i.  e. 
the  report  of  his  denials  received  from  the  Committee  of  In- 
vestigation ) . 

After  the  adjournment  of  the  Assembly,  a  special  meeting 
of  the  board  was  called  on  the  5th  of  June,  to  arrange  for 
the  filling  the  vacancy  in  the  faculty,  occasioned  by  the  sud- 
den death  of  Dr.  Henry  J.  Van  Dyke,  our  professor-elect  of 
Systematic  Theology.  After  this  important  business,  for  which 
the  meeting  was  called,  had  been  arranged,  the  board  con- 
sidered the  action  of  the  Assembly  at  Detroit,  and  decided 
that  it  was  due  to  our  students  to  know  what  to  count  upon 
for  the  coming  year's  instruction  ;  and  that  it  was  due  to 
ourselves  and  to  Dr.  Briggs  that  we  should  be  true  to  the 
promise  we  had  made  to  "  stand  by  him."  Accordingly  the 
following  resolution  was  adopted  : 

Resolved,  That  this  Board  of  Directors,  after  having  taken 
legal  advice,  and  after  due  consideration,  see  no  reason  to 
change  their  views  on  the  subject  of  the  transfer  of  Dr. 
Briggs,  and  feel  bound  in  the  discharge  of  their  duties  under 
the  cliarter  and  constitution,  to  adhere  to  the  same.  * 

This  action  was  taken  in  the  conviction  that  the  transfer 
of  Dr.  Briggs,  as  already  stated,  did  not  in  our  judgment 
come  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  General  Assembly  accord- 
ing to  the  arrangement  adopted  in  1870.  In  view  of  a  state- 
ment made  in  the  Assembly,  that  transfer  "did  not  make 
any  change  in  status,  but  only  in  duties,"  we  would  further 
say  that  the  transfer  did  not  even  make  any  real  change  in 
duties ;  for  Dr.  Briggs  had  been  teaching  Bible  Theology  for 
ten  years.  The  only  change  was  that  he  gave  up  two  lec- 
tures a  week  in  Hebrew  exegesis  to  his  colleague.  Dr.  Brown. 

*The  opinion  of  the  board's  legal  adviser,  Mr.  William  Allen  Butler, 
will  be  found  in  Appendix    C. 


168  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

No  disrespect  to  the  Assembly  was  intended  in  our  action ; 
for  it  did  not  enter  our  minds  that  the  Assembly  could  have 
any  jurisdiction  in  the  case. 

II. 

CONFERENCE   COMMITTEE'S   FIRST   PAPER. 

Resolution  of  the  General  Assembly's  Committee  on  Con- 
ference with  the  directors  of  the  Union  Theological  Semi- 
nary, October  28,  1891  : 

Whereas,  it  appears  by  the  written  communication  of  the 
directors  of  Union  Seminary  received  this  day  at  the  con- 
ference between  this  committee  and  the  directors,  that  the 
directors  adopted  the  following  minute  on  June  5,  1891,  to 
wit : 

Resolved,  That  this  Board  of  Directors,  after  having 
taken  legal  advice,  and  after  due  consideration,  see  no  reason 
to  change  their  views  on  the  subject  of  the  transfer  of  Dr. 
Briggs,  and  feel  bound  in  the  discharge  of  their  duties,  under 
the  charter  and  constitution,  to  adhere  to  the  same,  and 

Whereas,  it  appears  that  this  action  was  based  upon  the 
opinion  of  their  legal  adviser,  and 

Whereas,  in  that  opinion  submitted  to  us  by  the  directors 
for  our  information,  they  were  advised  that  the  agreement  or 
arrangement  made  by  the  General  Assembly  and  the  direc- 
tors in  1870,  was  not  binding  upon  the  directors,  and 

Whereas,  President  Hastings,  representing  the  directors, 
communicated  to  this  committee  orally,  that  the  directors 
reserved  the  right  to  determine  this  question  hereafter,  and 
at  the  same  time  expressed  the  readiness  of  the  directors  to 
hear  the  views  of  the  committee  upon  this  subject ; 

Therefore,  this  committee  states  that  the  General  Assem- 
bly has  always  regarded  the  same  agreement  or  arrangement 
as   binding    legally    and    morally    upon    botli    parties    to    the 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  169 

same;  and  it  desires  to  know  the  views  of  the  directors  upon 
this  fundamental  point,  for  if  the  agreement  is  not  legally  and 
morally  binding  upon  both  parties,  it  is  of  no  practical  use 
to  discuss  what  is  the  true  construction  of  the  said  agree- 
ment or  arrangement. 

III. 


'c< 


CONFERENCE   COMMITTEE  S   SECOND    PAPER. 

The  General  Assembly's  Committee  of  Conference  submit 
for  the  consideration  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  Union 
Theological  Seminary  in  the  City  of  New  York,  the  follow- 
ing paper : 

Dear  Brethren  :  We  have  considered  the  written  state- 
ments, as  well  as  tliose  made  orally  to  you,  with  reference 
to  the  transfer  of  Professor  Briggs.  It  is  manifest  you  hold  an 
interpretation  of  the  terms  of  the  agreement  between  the 
General  Assembly  and  the  seminaries  under  their  care,  widely 
diiferent  from  that  held  by  the  Assembly  under  whose  au- 
thority this  committee  is  now  actiug.  We  are  sincerely 
desirious,  as  we  believe  you  are,  to  find  some  way  of  recon- 
ciliation both  for  the  present  and  for  the  future,  which  will 
lead  to  a  harmonious  execution  of  the  agreement  between  the 
Assembly  and  the  seminaries.  We  can  not,  even  were  we  so 
disposed,  change  the  action  of  the  body  we  represent  with 
reference  to  Professor  Briggs. 

Again,  we  are  embarrassed  by  the  action  of  your  board, 
taken  in  seeming  disregard  of  the  authority  of  the  Assembly, 
and  thus  debarring  us  from  making  any  recommendations 
which  do  not  involve  a  denial  of  the  right  of  the  Assembly 
to  do  what  it  did.  Some  concessions,  not  of  principle,  but 
with  reference  to  modes  of  action,  must  be  made,  in  order  to 
place  the  matter  of  interpretation  at  issue,  between  the  Gen- 


170  THE   UNION  THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

eral  Assembly  and  the  Board  of  Directors  in  the  future,  for 
an  amicable  settlement. 

We  would,  therefore,  ask  you  most  respectfully,  if  you 
would  not  so  far  modify  the  action  you  have  taken,  as  to 
submit  to  the  action  of  the  General  Assembly,  for  the  present, 
under  protest,  if  your  conscientious  judgment  so  demand,  and 
to  regard  the  election  of  Professor  Briggs  as  incomplete,  until 
the  matter  shall  again  be  brought  before  the  Assembly  in  such 
form  as  your  wisdom  may  suggest.  If  this  was  done,  the 
way  would  be  opened  for  us  to  recommend  to  the  General 
Assembly  the  advisability  of  taking  such  action  in  conference 
with  all  the  seminaries  as  would  leave  the  transfer  of  pro- 
fessors in  cases  not  involving  an  essentially  diiferent  and  new 
department  of  instruction,  (such  as  the  division  of  the  in- 
struction of  a  particular  chair),  to  the  entire  control  of  the 
directors  of  the  seminaries. 

In  making  this  suggestion  we  do  not  ask  you  to  surren- 
der or  deny  any  of  your  real  or  supposed  rights  under  your 
interpretation  of  the  agreement  of  1870.  We  recognize  also 
the  fact  that  you  had  no  desire  or  purpose  in  the  transfer 
of  Professor  Briggs,  to  act  contrary  to  the  agreement.  We  also 
find  from  your  statements  that  you  did  not  elect  Professor  Briggs 
to  the  chair  of  Biblical  Theology,  under  the  conditions  pre- 
scribed by  your  laws  and  observed  in  all  other  cases  of  elec- 
tion, and  that  you  intended  to  limit  his  duties  to  a  depart- 
ment of  instruction  in  which  he  had  already  been,  as  you 
supposed,  properly  engaged.  In  view  of  all  this  we  hope 
that  you  will  unite  with  us  in  an  eifort  to  procure  from  the 
General  Assembly,  such  legislation  as  will  define  for  the 
future,  the  questions  raised  in  the  present  issue. 
William   H.  Roberts, 

Seci'etarij  of  the  coimnittee. 
[A  true  copy.] 


ANOTHER  DECADE    OF  ITS  HISTORY.  171 

IV. 

ACTION  OF  THE  BOARD  OF  DIRECTORS  IN  VIEW  OF  THE 
FIRST  PAPER  OF  THE  GI^NERAL  ASSEMBLY'S  COMMITTEE 
OF   CONFERENCE,  OCTOBER    29,  1891. 

Whereas  the  question  has  been  raised  by  the  committee 
of  the  General  Assembly  now  in  conference  with  this  board, 
as  to  the  attitude  of  this  board  toward  the  arrangement  of 
1870: 

Resolved,  That  this  board,  without  surrendering  its  inter- 
pretation of  said  arrangement,  fully  recognizes  its  binding 
force  until  it  shall  be  proved  to  be  illegal,  or  shall  be  prop- 
erly abrogated. 

V. 

ACTION  OF  THE  BOARD  OF  DIRECTORS  IN  VIEW  OF  THE 
SECOND  PAPER  OF  THE  GENERAL  ASSEMBLY'S  COM- 
MITTEE  OF    CONFERENCE,   OCTOBER    29,  1891. 

Resolved,  That  this  board  desire  more  time  to  consider 
the  second  paper  which  has  been  laid  before  us  by  the  com- 
mittee of  the  General  Assembly ;  that  they  will  take  it  up 
at  an  early  day  and  report  their  action  to  the  said  committee 
and  will  then  ask  for  another  conference  with  the  said  com- 
mittee. 

Resolved,  That  the  said  papers  be  referred  to  the  Execu- 
tive Committee  for  examination  and  to  report  their  views  to 
this  board. 

The  adjourned  meeting  took  place  on  Wednesday, 
January  20,  1892,  and  closed  on  the  afternoon  of  Jan- 
uary 22.  There  was  earnest  debate  in  the  Board  of 
Directors,  in  the  Assembly's  committee,  and  in  joint 
sittings  of  both.     The  discussion  in  the  board  turned 


172  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

chiefly  upon  two  jioints  :  first,  arbitration  in  regard  to 
the  question  whether  a  transfer  was  equivalent  to  an 
original  election  ;  and  second,  the  report  to  be  made  to 
the  next  General  Assembly  as  to  what  the  seminary 
would  consent  to  do  in  reference  to  the  future.  For 
reasons,  which  will  be  given  later,  the  Committee  of 
Conference  withdrew  the  proposal  of  arbitration.  As 
to  several  other  points  the  views  of  the  board  were 
expressed  in  the  following  j)aper,  addressed  to  the 
Committee  of  Conference : 

THE  BOARD  OF  DIRECTORS  OF  THE  UNION  THEOLOGICAL 
SEMINARY  TO  THE  GENERAL  ASSEMBLY'S  COMMITTEE 
OF    CONFERENCE : 

Dear  Brethren  :  Having  answered  your  proposition 
in  the  second  paper  submitted  to  us,  we  desire  in  addition 
to  present  to  you  the  following  considerations. 

I.  You  have  said  to  us, — "We  recognize  the  fact  that 
you  had  no  desire  or  purpose  in  the  transfer  of  Professor 
Briggs  to  act  contrary  to  the  agreement."  On  our  part  we 
would  reciprocate  fully  the  courtesy  of  this  acknowledge- 
ment and  say  that  we  believe  the  General  Assembly  did  not 
mean  to  violate  the  agreement  of  1870,  or  to  transcend  tlie 
power  then  conceded.  We  do  not  question  that  the  Assem- 
bly acted  conscientiously  in  its  interpretation  of  that  agree- 
ment. We  are  willing  also  to  believe  that  the  Assembly 
had  no  intention  to  dishonor  or  to  wrong  this  institution. 
And  yet  the  action  taken  at  Detroit  was  virtually  a  verdict 
against  either  the  character,  or  the  competency  of  the  Board 
of  Directors ;  a  verdict  without  reasons  given,  and  witliout 
a  hearino'.       With    a    full     knowledge    of  all    the    facts,  and 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  173 

after  long  consideration,  the  board  had  endeavored  to  do  its 
whole  duty  in  the  case  at  issue.  Dr.  Briggs  was  carefully 
questioned  upon  all  the  points  in  which  he  had  been  assailed, 
and  the  questions,  and  his  direct  and  satisfactory  answers  to 
the  same,  had  been  published  and  widely  circulated,  together 
with  the  unanimous  action  of  his  colleagues  in  the  faculty. 
But  our  judgment  and  decision,  and  the  opinion  of  the  fac- 
ulty, apparently  received  no  recognition  whatever.  The 
wrong  thus  caused  or  occasioned  to  this  board  and  to  this 
seminary,  it  would  be  hard,  perhaps,  to  parallel  in  the 
history  of  Christrian  institutions  in  our  time.  Certain  Pres- 
byteries hastened  to  do  what  they  could  to  prevent  students 
from  coming  to  us.  The  Synod  of  Baltimore  has  virtually 
asked  the  Assembly  to  disown  us,  and  that  in  language  of 
an  extraordinary  character.  We  have  seen  little  evidence 
of  respectful  waiting  for  the  results  of  your  appointed  con- 
ference with  us.  But  while  we  shall  not  ask  the  General 
Assembly  to  reconsider  its  action,  we  do  ask  that  our  ina- 
bility to  concur  in  the  Assembly's  interpretation  of  the 
agreement  of  1870  be  so  fully  and  justly  recognized  that 
the  past  shall  be  left  to  tell  its  own  story.  In  our  judg- 
ment the  mutual  understanding  of  the  two  parties  to  that 
agreement  should  rest  in  this  conclusion, — we  cannot  agree 
in  our  views  of  the  rights  involved,  and  neither  party  can 
undo  what  has  been  done. 

11.  But  we  have  a  strong  conviction  that  something  more 
than  this  is  requisite  to  protect  the  peace  of  the  Church  in 
the  future,  and  you  will  allow  us  frankly  to  express  that 
conviction. 

As  chairman  of  the  Standing  Committee  on  Theological 
Seminaries,  Dr.  William  Adams  said  to  the  Assembly  in 
1870  that  our  directors  in  their  memorial  were  "looking 
solely  to  the  peace  and  harmony  of  the  Church."     (Minutes 


174  THE   UNION  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

of  1870,  p.  63),  In  that  memorial  our  directors  expressed 
themselves  as  "  desirous  of  doing  all  in  their  power  to 
establish  confidence  and  harmony  throughout  the  whole 
Church  in  respect  to  the  education  of  its  ministers."  Doubt- 
less, in  those  early  days  of  reunion,  the  agreement  did  serve 
temporarily  a  beneficent  purpose  in  promoting  confidence  and 
harmony.  The  possibilities  and  the  perils  of  this  agreement 
lay  dormant  until  at  last  the  time  came  for  their  revelation 
by  a  practical  test.  The  true  nature  and  effect  of  a  law 
may  remain  unknown  for  years,  unless  that  law  is  applied 
to  an  actual  case.  Months  before  the  late  Assembly  met  a 
sudden  agitation  spread  through  the  Church,  a  general  alarm 
was  sounded  and  many  Presbyteries  took  part  in  the  move- 
ment by  overturing  the  General  Assembly.  When,  there- 
fore, the  Assembly  met  at  Detroit  the  veto  of  Dr.  Briggs' 
transfer  seemed  to  be  a  foregone  conclusion.  So  for  the 
first  time  in  twenty  years  the  agreement  of  1870  was  really 
tested  as  a  working  power ;  and  in  the  light  of  recent  events, 
as  we  need  hardly  say,  it  was  found  to  be  a  dangerous  ele- 
ment in  the  life  of  the  Church  not  calculated  to  promote 
general  peace  and  harmony,  but  full  of  the  possibilities  of 
evil. 

In  1869,  in  presenting  the  report  of  the  Committee  of 
Conference  on  reunion.  Dr.  George  W.  Musgrave  said  to 
the  Old  School  Assembly,  referring  to  the  articles  contained, 
not  in  the  "■  plan  of  union,"  but  in  the  "declarations," — that 
"they  are  not  a  compact  or  covenant,  but  they  suggest  to 
the  Assembly  what  are  suitable  arrangements.  They  arc 
not  terms  of  the  union.  They  may  be  annulled  or  modi- 
fied as  any  future  Assembly  may  deem  proper.  We  told 
our  brethren  that  we  were  unwilling  to  tie  the  hands  of  the 
future  Church  of  God."  (The  Presbyterian  Reunion  Mem- 
orial   volume,    p.  546.)       If  the  General    Assembly,  as  one 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  I75 

party  to  the  agreement  of  1.S70,  could  "annul  or  modify" 
that  agreement,  then  as  the  other  party,  the  seminary  must 
of  necessity  haye  the  same  right  and  power. 

In  the  general  Assembly  of  1870,  as  chairman  of  the 
Standing  Committee  on  Theological  Seminaries,  Dr.  William 
Adams  said,  referring  to  the  ninth  Article  of  the  "  declara- 
tion :"  "It  was  intended  as  a  measure  for  the  maintenance  of 
confidence  and  harmony,  and  not  as  indicating  the  best 
method  for  all  future  time."  Such  was  the  understanding 
of  those  leaders  of  the  Church,  as  on  the  height  of  reunion 
feeling  they  looked  oif  into  the  future.  They  did  not  pre- 
sume that  they  had  determined  "  the  best  method  for  all 
future  time."  They  had  seen  or  felt,  as  it  is  expressed  in 
the  memorial  of  this  board  to  the  Assembly  of  1870,  (Min- 
utes, p.  148)  "that  there  were  many  disadyantages,  infelicities, 
not  to  say,  at  times,  perils  in  the  election  of  professors  of 
the  seminaries  directly  and  immediately  by  the  General 
Assembly  itself, — a  body  so  large,  in  session  for  so  short  a 
time,  and  composed  of  members  to  so  great  an  extent  resi- 
dent at  a  distance  from  the  seminaries  themselves,  and 
therefore  personally  unacquainted  with  many  things  which 
pertain  to  their  true  interest  and  usefulness." 

In  a  similar  yein  wrote  Dr.  A.  A.  Hodge  to  Dr.  Henry 
B.  Smith  in  December,  1867,  and  we  venture  to  quote  his 
wise    and    significant  words : 

It  is  proper,  it  is  almost  a  necessity,  that  each  insti- 
tution should  be  left  in  the  management  of  those  upon 
whose  support  it  exclusiyely  depends.  The  majority  of 
any  Assembly  must  be  necessarily  ignorant  of  the  special 
wants  and  local  conditions  of  any  seminary,  and  of  the 
qualifications  of  candidates  proposed  for  the  chairs  of  in- 
struction. The  best  of  these  are  generally  young  men,  up 
to  the  time  of  their  nomination,  known  only  to  a  few. 
To  vest   the   choice   in  the  General   Assembly  will   tend   to 


176  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

put  prominent  ecclesiastics  into  such  positions,  rather  than 
scholars,  or  men  specially  qualified  Avith  gifts  for  teaching. 
As  the  population  of  our  country  becomes  larger  and  more 
heterogeneous,  and  the  General  Assembly  increases  propor- 
tionately, the  difficulties  above  mentioned,  and  many  others 
easily  thought  of,  will  increase. 

Dr.  Henry  B.  Smith  stated  his  own  views  in  the  follow- 
ing language  : 

It  is  a  fair  and  serious  question  whether  a  General  As- 
sembly, representing  the  Presbyterian  Church  throughout  the 
whole  United  States,  especially  in  view  of  the  numbers  in 
Church,  and  the  extent  of  the  territory  in  twenty  or  thirty 
years,  will  be  the  best  or  even  a  suitable  body  to  clioose  the 
professors  and  manage  the  concerns  of  all  the  Presbyterian 
seminaries  scattered  throughout  the  country.  We  very  much 
doubt  whether  this  will  be  a  wise  arrangement.  It  may  work 
well  in  Scotland,  but  Scotland  has  its  limits.  It  might  bring 
into  the  Assembly  local,  personal  and  theological  questions 
which  it  would  be  better  to  settle  in  a  narrower  field. 

Sucli  are  the  views  which  led  the  Assembly  to  surrender 
the  right,  which  it  had  possessed  before  the  reunion,  of 
electing  the  professors  in  those  seminaries  which  were  and 
are  distinctively  its  own,  either  because  founded  by  the  As- 
sembly, or  because  entirely  under  its  control.  But  these  same 
considerations  apply  at  least  equally  to  the  exercise  of  the 
"veto  power"  by  the  Assembly,  only  with  this  important 
difference.  The  veto  is  virtually  a  verdict,  not  to  say  a 
stigma,  both  against  the  professor  appointed  and  against  the 
Board  of  Directors  which  appointed  him  ;  and  as  such  it  is 
much  more  harmful  to  the  individual  and  to  the  institution 
concerned,  than  could  be  the  failure  by  the  General  Assem- 
bly to  elect  as  professor  one  who  had  been  merely  nominated. 
The  veto  is  positive,  the  failure  to  elect  is  oidy  negative  in 
its  influence.     We  claim  in    the    light   of  recent    events    that 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  177 

the  objections  so  successfully  urged  in  1870,  against  contin- 
uing to  the  Assembly  the  electing  power,  have  still  greater 
force  against  continuing  to  that  body  the  veto  power.  The 
first  exercise  of  that  power,  instead  of  promoting,  has  greatly 
disturbed  the  peace  and  harmony  of  the  Church ;  it  has 
wronged  the  institution,  and  the  individual  Avhose  good  name 
has  been  branded  with  a  disapproval  based  upon  no  trial 
and  accompanied  and  justified  by  no  reasons.  The  judgment 
of  those  who  had  close  and  long  experimental  knowledge  of 
the  effects  of  Dr.  Briggs'  teachings  was  ignored  and  over- 
ridden by  the  decision  of  a  multitude  who  had  looked  on 
from  a  distance,  and  were  not  guided  in  their  judgment  by 
intimate  personal  knowledge. 

III.  But  it  will  be  said  that  the  Church  should  be  able 
to  protect  herself  against  erroneous  teaching.  This  we  do 
not  question,  and  here  our  admirable  Presbyterian  policy 
provides,    as   it  seems  to  us,  for  all  the    necessities  involved. 

The  right  of  "original  jurisdiction"  in  the  case  of  a  minister, 
whether  he  teaches  from  the  pulpit  or  from  the  professor's 
chair,  inheres  in  the  Presbytery  to  which  he  belongs,  and 
not  in  the  General  Assembly.  It  is  as  unjust  as  it  is  un- 
Presbyterian  to  discriminate  between  a  pastor  and  a  profes- 
sor to  the  detriment  or  the  peril  of  either.  The  Church 
needs  no  other  protection  against  heresy  in  the  pulpit  or  in 
the  seminary,  than  that  which  our  polity  affords.  In  an  ex- 
treme case,  such  as  is  conceivable,  the  Assembly,  through  the 
Synod,  can  even  require  the  Presbytery  to  which  a  professor 
belongs  to  arraign  for  trial.  At  Detroit,  the  Assembly  was 
involved  in  an  inextricable  tangle  by  the  simple  fact  that  the 
veto  power,  as  they  interpreted  it,  impelled  them  to  express 
their  disapproval  of  a  man  who  at  that  very  time  M'as  under 
charges  by  his  Presbytery,  and  whose  case  might  later  be 
brought  before  the.  Assembly  as  a  court  of  appeal.     The  ac- 


178  THE   UNION  THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

tion  tlnis  taken  could  not  fail  to  embarrass  the  Presbytery 
of  New  York  in  undertaking  judicial  proceedings.  Hence, 
as  it  seems  to  us,  the  agreement  of  1870  has  proved  itself 
by  the  test  of  experience  dangerously  inconsistent  Avith  a 
fundamental  principle  of  the  polity  of  our  Church  as  also 
with  the  true  spirit  of  American  Presbyterianism. 

IV.  In  the  conclusion  of  your  second  paper,  to  which  we 
have  replied,  you  said  : 

We  hope  that  you  will  unite  with  us  in  an  eifort  to 
procure  from  the  General  Assembly  such  legislation  as  Avill 
define  for  the  future  the  questions  raised  in  the  present  issue. 

With  all  due  respect  to  that  body  we  Avould  say  that  in 
this  matter  the  General  Assembly,  in  our  opinion,  has  no 
right  whatever  to  legislate.  In  the  agreement  the  Assembly 
is  simply  one  party  and  this  seminary  is  the  other. 

In  view  then  of  the  considerations  we  have  presented 
concerning  the  practical  and  the  ecclesiastical  aspects  of  the 
agreement  of  1870,  and  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  recent 
exercise  of  the  veto  power  by  the  Assembly  must  make  it 
seriously  difficult  in  the  future  to  induce  scholars  to  accept 
appointments  in  our  seminary  faculties,  we  sincerely  believe 
that  both  parties  to  the  agreement  of  1870  should  equally 
desire  its  abrogation,  alike  for  the  sake  of  the  Church,  and 
for  the  sake  of  the  seminaries. 

But  this  board  is  certainly  bound  to  regard  the  safety 
and  welfare  of  the  institution  under  its  direction,  and  must 
act  according  to  its  own  best  judgment.  Since  we  stand 
alone  in  our  solemn  responsibility  and  obligations  as  the 
appointed  guardians  of  this  great  institution  of  Christian 
learning,  so  we  must  reserve  the  right,  if  need  be,  to  act 
alone  according  to  the  light  and  grace  we  have.  AVe  yield 
to  none  in  heartfelt  loyalty  to  our  beloved  Church,  and  we 
have  pledged  ourselves  also   to   be  loyal    to  the  history,  con- 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  179 

stitution  and  chartered  rights  of  Union  Seminary.  Conscience 
forbids  ns  in  any  way  to  surrender  or  to  imperil  this  sacred 
providential  trust. 

We  shall  be  thankful  and  glad,  honored  brethren,  if  you 
can  see  these  things  as  we  do,  and  can  so  represent  them  to 
the  General  Assembly  that  they  shall  be  convinced  that  it  is 
better  for  the  Church  as  well  as  for  us,  that  such  relations 
as  this  seminary  sustained  to  the  Church  before  1870,  which 
for  more  than  a  third  of  a  century,  were  so  harmonious  and 
fruitful  of  good,  should  now  be  restored. 

Such  was  the  immediate  issue  of  the  conflict  between 
the  Board  of  Directors  and  the  Assembly's  committee. 
It  was  a  sort  of  truce  until  the  meeting  of  the  next 
General  Assembly.  A  few  days  after  the  adjournment 
the  following  statement  was  addressed  to  the  public  : 

The  adjourned  conference,  which  began  on  Wednesday 
last,  between  the  Assembly's  committee  and  the  directors  of 
the  Union  Theological  Seminary,  was  concluded  on  Friday 
evening.  A  full,  free  and  calm  discussion  was  held  of  all 
the  points  at  issue.  There  was  throughout  an  obvious  and 
earnest  desire  to  reach  harmoniously  some  conclusion. 

The  committee  did  not  and  could  not  yield  as  to  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly's  interpretation  of  the  agreement  of  1870.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  seminary  directors  did  not  yield  their 
position  with  regard  to  the  transfer  of  Dr.  Briggs.  The  fact 
is  accepted  on  both  sides  that  there  is  an  honest  difference 
of  opinion  between  the  two  parties  to  the  agreement  of  1870, 
which  difference  will  be  reported  to  the  General  Assembly 
as  for  the  present  irreconcilable.  The  committee  recommend 
that  the   status   quo   be    recognized,    in  the   hope  that  some 


180  THE   UXIOX   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

action  may  be  taken  Avhich  will  lead  to  a  harmonious  settle- 
ment of  the  questions  involved. 

The  members  of  the  committee  and  the  directors  of  the 
seminary  have  reached  a  better  understanding  of  one  another 
by  the  free  and  courteous  interchange  of  views,  and  on  both 
sides  there  has  been  an  honorable  disposition  to  seek  those 
things  which  make  for  peace. 

In  the  conclusion  of  the  conference  the  venerable  Dr. 
Butler  addressed  the  committee  in  a  few  kindly  and  impres- 
sive words,  to  which  Dr.  Patton  responded  in  like  spirit,  and 
then,  w'ith  the   doxology  and  the    benediction,  the   conference 

w^as  adjourned. 

Francis  L.  Patton, 

Chairman  of  the  General  Assembly's  Committee. 

Thomas  S.  Hastings, 
For  the  Directors  of  Union  Theological  Seminary. 

The  following  letter  from  Dr.  Hastings  will  explain 
itself : 

New  York,  May,  1898. 
My  Dear  Dr.  Prentiss: 

You  ask  me  for  my  impressions  regarding  the  several 
meetino's  of  the  Board  of  Directors  Avith  the  General  Assem- 
bly's  Committee  on  Conference,  October  28,  1891,  and 
January  20,  1892.  At  this  distance  it  is  possible  to  write 
calmly  of  things  which  at  the  time  profoundly  moved  us  all. 
Of  course  the  interviews  of  the  board  and  the  committee 
were  characterized  by  the  utmost  courtesy  on  both  sides. 
There  M'as  no  apparent  heat  in  the  protracted  and  repeated 
discussions.  But  it  w'as  evident  from  the  first  to  the  last 
that  the  committee  assumed  that  the  General  Assembly  must 
be  right  and  therefore  the  seminary  nuist  be  wrong.  No 
concession  was  made    to  the    seniiii:irv  ;    hut  it  was  evidently 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  181 

expected  that  we  would  make  to  them  concessions  which  we 
felt,  and  tried  to  show  them,  we  could  not  in  honor  make. 
The  only  propositions  which  the  committee  made  to  us 
required  that  we  should  ignore  the  deliberate  and  conscien- 
tious action  Avhich  we  had  taken,  and  to  which  we  were 
bound  by  every  principle  of  Christian  honor  and  integrity 
to  adhere.  Our  papers  carefully  prepared  and  submitted  to 
the  committee  showed  very  clearly  wherein  the  Assembly 
had  mistaken  our  position,  and  had  transcended  the  right 
conceded  to  them  in  the  agreement  of  1870.  But  the  com- 
mittee would  concede  nothing,  while  Dr.  Patton  crowned  and 
practically  concluded  the  conference  by  deliberately  saying 
that  if  he  had  it  all  to  do  over  again  he  would  do  exactly 
what  he  did  at  Detroit.  This  made  upon  the  board  and 
upon  me  a  very  unpleasant  impression.  It  was  evident  that 
further  conference  was  useless. 

Referring  to  the  cry  of  "  now  or  never/'  which  was  heard 
so  often  at  Detroit,  I  asked  Dr.  Patton  if  he  thought  that  if 
either  Dr.  Butler  or  I  had  been  telegraphed  from  Detroit, 
asking  if  we  would  be  willing  to  waive  the  limitation  of 
time  in  the  agreement  there  would  have  been  the  slightest 
hesitation  on  our  part  in  sending  an  affirmative  reply?  But 
to  this  question  there  was  no  satisfactory  answer. 

The  committee  yielded  nothing,  though  they  wanted  us 
to  yield  everything,  and  at  the  conclusion  of  the  conference 
they  asked  that  the  several  papers  which  we  had  presented 
as  containing  our  case,  should  not  be  given  to  the  public. 
Mr.  George  Junkin  said,  in  urging  their  suppression : 

I  do  not  like  the  idea  of  having  copies  made  of  these 
two  papers,  because  they  are  really  a  very  powerful  argu- 
ment settino^  forth  the  directors'  view.  I  think  it  would  be 
perilous  to  the  peace  of  the  Church  if  these  papers  should 
get  out. 


182  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

We  parted  in  a  kindly  and    fraternal  way,    but  Mith   tlie 
feeling  that  nothing  had  been  gained   or   lost  on  either  side. 
These  in  general  are  my  impressions  which    you  desired 
me  to  give  of  the  memorable  conferences  between  the  Assem- 
bly's committee  and  our  Board  of  Directors. 

With  sincere  regard,  yours  truly, 

Thomas  S.  Hastings. 

ih)  Discussion  of  the  agreement  of  1870  in  the  secu- 
lar and  religious  press,  especially  that  of  the  Presbyterian 
denominatioyi. 

The  public  interest  aroused  by  Dr.  Briggs'  address 
and  the  Detroit  veto  was  very  lively  and  wide- 
spread. There  had  been  nothing  quite  like  it  since 
1837-38.  Both  subjects  touched  the  j^opular  mind  at 
many  points  and  in  various  ways.  Nor  can  there  be 
any  doubt  that,  whatever  else  maybe  said  of  them, 
they  served  an  excellent  purpose  as  object-lessons  in 
ecclesiastical  ethics,  oj)inion  and  manners.  A  good 
deal  of  what  was  written  against  Union  Seminary,  espe- 
cially in  the  religious  papers,  w^as  very  bitter  and 
rasping ;  but  much  on  the  other  hand,  while  decided 
and  even  severe,  was  marked  by  such  evident  sincerity 
and  strong  conviction  as  to  disarm  angry  feeling.  The 
leading  secular  journals  of  New  York  watched  the  case 
with  the  greatest  interest  and  furnished  the  i^ublic  with 
a  vast  amount  of  information  on  all  its  successive 
phases.  In  preparing  this  volume  I  have  been  con- 
stantly indebted  to  the  records  of  their  energetic  and 
persistent  labor.     For  the  most  j^art  they  were  iiiipar- 


ANOTHER   DECADE   OE  ITS  HISTORY.  183 

tial  and  eager  to  get  at  and  to  tell  the  truth,  the  whole 
truth  and,  as  far  as  the  infirmities  of  human  nature  in 
the  matter  of  news  would  permit,  nothing  but  the  truth. 
One  of  them,  however,  "the  Leading  Evening  Paper," 
was  an  exception.  Its  proprietor  at  that  time,  who  was 
said  to  be  also  the  author  of  some  of  its  sharj^est  edito- 
rials on  the  subject,  was  one  of  the  most  estimable  men 
in  New  York ;  kind-hearted,  generous,  and  full  of 
varied  Christian  activity  ;  but  his  zeal  for  Presbyterian 
orthodoxy  was  not  at  all  according  to  knowledge ;  Dr. 
Briggs  was  to  him  a  hete  noire,  and  "  higher  criti- 
cism "  only  another  name  for  downright  infidelity. 
The  editorials  on  these  subjects  were  laden  with  the 
wildest  sort  of  personal  abuse  and  denunciation.  They 
were  just  what  for  the  honor  of  fair  and  truthful  jour- 
nalism they  should  not  have  been.  Dr.  Briggs,  his 
colleagues  and  friends.  Union  Seminary  and  its  Board 
of  Directors,  day  after  day,  and  month  after  month, 
were  stigmatized  in  frenzied  assaults  of  blind  passion 
and  calumny.  And  yet  this  paper  was  sent  far  and 
wide  to  ministers  and  elders  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church  in  countless  numbers,  renewing  old  theological 
prejudices  and  sowing  the  seeds  of  new  ones.  As  a 
faithful  historian  of  Union  Seminary  I  have  felt  bound 
to  refer  to  this  painful  instance  and  illustration  of  the 
kind  of  warfare  which  it  had  to  endure. 

Besides  innumerable  articles,  editorial  or  contrib- 
uted, in  the  newspapers,  several  pamphlets  apjDcared 
in  exposition   and  defence  of  the  Assembly's  action. 


184  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

They  also  were  widely  circulated  and  did  much  to 
fortify  and  increase  the  hostility  to  Union  Seminary  as 
in  rebellion  against  the  General  Assembly.  One  of 
these  entitled  The  Ecclesiastical  Status  of  the  Theologi- 
cal Seminaries,  was  written  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  William 
II.  Roberts,  then  j)rofessor  at  Lane.  It  was  first  pub- 
lished in  The  Herald  and  Presbyter  of  December  2, 
1891.  As  an  exposition  of  the  most  stringent  theory 
of  Assembly  control  it  matched  perfectly  with  the 
actual  embodiment  of  the  23rinciple  in  the  first  section, 
Article  II,  of  the  "  Amended  Constitution "  of  the 
Seminary  of  the  Northwest,  already  cited.  The  points 
were  made  with  no  little  force  and  ingenuity,  as  also 
with  an  assurance  not  unbecoming  a  Chief  Justice  of 
the  United  States '  Supreme  Court  in  announcing  a 
unanimous  opinion  of  that  great  tribunal.  Dr.  Roberts 
contended  that  the  agreement  of  1870  brought  Union 
Seminary  under  the  control  of  the  General  Assembly 
in  a  sense  essentially  the  same  as  that  in  which  all  the 
Old  School  seminaries  were,  and  had  ever  been,  under 
Assembly  control ;  in  other  words,  wrought  a  radical 
change  in  the  plan  and  constitution  of  Union  Semi- 
nary, annulled  its  most  characteristic  princijDle,  and  so 
put  an  end  to  its  independent  existence.  He  took 
ground  in  direct  conflict  with  that  of  the  Standing 
Committee  on  Theological  Seminaries  at  Detroit,  as 
also  with  the  opinion  of  the  Detroit  Assembly  itself. 
Dr.  Patton  said  in  his  report  that  the  seminary  was 
"  one  of  the  parties  of  the  comj^act ;  "  and,  later,  in  his 


AN.OTHER  DECADE   OE  ITS  HISTORY.  185 

speech  lie  said,  "  We  have  recognized  that  as  a  party 
Union  Seminary  may  claim  that  their  rights  have  been 
infringed  by  our  construction,  and  if  they  see  fit  they 
can  take  us  into  the  civil  courts  for  a  judicial  and 
authoritative  interpretation  of  this  compact,"  He  said 
still  later :  "  We  concede  that  we  are  parties  in  equal 
interest.  Neither  can  compel  the  other  to  accept  its 
construction."  Dr.  Roberts  denied  that  the  seminary 
had  any  right  whatever  as  a  party  over  against  the 
Assembly.  But  I  will  let  his  article  speak  for  itself, 
simply  underscoring  a  few  words.  Here  is  his  own 
recapitulation  and  summing  up  of  the  argument : 

CONCLUSIONS. 

From  the  considerations,  facts,  laws  and  precedents  pre- 
sented, the  following  conclusions  are  drawn  as  pertinent  to 
the  present  ecclesiastical  status  of  the  theological  seminaries  : 

1.  That  concurrent  declaration  No.  9,  as  agreed  to  and 
enacted  at  reunion  by  both  the  Old  and  New  School  General 
Assemblies,  established,  as  a  principle  of  action  for  the  re- 
united Church,  a  uniform  method  of  ecclesiastical  control  of 
all  the  theological  seminaries. 

2.  That  the  General  Assembly  in  1870  and  1871  passed 
acts  which  put  into  effective  operation  said  concurrent 
declaration  No.  9  ;  certain  features  of  the  act  having  been 
suggested  in  a  memorial  presented  to  the  Assembly  by  the 
directors  of  tlie  Union  Theological  Seminary. 

3.  That  the  Church  now  exercises  control  over  all  theolog- 
ical seminaries  through  the  supreme  legislative  and  executive 
body,  the  General  Assembly. 

4.  That  the  power  to  modify  and  interpret  said  acts  of 
1870-71  rests  solely  in  the  General  Assembly.     While,  how- 


186  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMLNARY. 

ever,  the  Assembly  would  appear  at  present  to  be  obligated 
to  maintain  the  act  of  1870-71,  in  its  several  features,  it  is 
clear  that  under  the  agreement  made  at  reunion,  should  cir- 
cumstances arise  requiring  action,  the  Church  gathered  in 
General  Assembly  may  place  the  seminaries  under  ANOTHER 
method  of  control. 

5.  That  the  several  theological  seminaries  are  so  obligated 
by  the  agreements  connected  with  reunion ,  by  the  Assembly's 
acts  of  1870-71,  and  by  the  acts  of  their  own  directors,  that 
they  can  neither  except  to  the  authority  of  the  General 
Assembly,  nor  withdraw  on  their  own  motion  from  the  con- 
trol of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United  States  of 
America. 

6.  That  the  General  Assembly,  by  virtue  of  the  consti- 
tution, of  the  agreements  made  at  reunion,  and  by  the  acts 
of  the  directors  of  the  several  theological  seminaries,  is  in- 
vested with  power  to  disapprove  or  veto  appointments  of 
professors  of  the  seminaries,  whether  said  appointments  are 
original  elections  or  transfers. 

Without  stopping  to  criticise  Dr.  Roberts'  pamphlet 
in  detail  and  leaving  his  "  conclusions  "  to  sjjeak  for 
themselves,  it  is  only  needful  to  call  attention  to  two 
or  three  errors  of  fact  that  vitiated  all  his  reasoning. 
On  page  6  of  the  pamp)hlet  Dr.  Roberts  said  : 

There  was  unanimous  assent  at  reunion  to  the  principle 
that  the  Church  should  exercise,  in  some  definite  form,  con- 
trol of  her  theological  institutions.  And  it  is  held  that  the 
effect  of  reunion,  and  of  the  joint  unanimous  adoption  of  the 
concurrent  declaration,  by  the  Old  and  New  School  Assem- 
blies, was  to  make  the  principle  contained  in  declaration  No. 
0  binding  upon  all  parties  to  the  reunion  until  said  declara- 


ANOTHER   DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  187 

tion  should  have  been  modified  or  rescinded  by  the  General 
Assembly  of  the  united  Church.  Whatever  may  be  thought 
of  details  in  the  method  of  its  administration,  the  principle 
stands,  and  the  law  containing  it  is  subject  to  change  only 
by  action  of  the  General  Assembly. 

But  the  declaration  No.  9  was  expressly  stated  by 
the  chairmen  of  the  Joint  Committee,  Drs.  Adams  and 
Beatty,  in  their  report  to  the  two  Assemblies  which 
adopted  it,  to  be  only  a  "  re  commendation  "  (the  italics 
are  their  own).  How,  then,  conld  it  be  treated  as  an 
"  established  principle  "  and  "  law  "  of  the  Church  ? 
Did  the  mere  recommendation  of  a  constitutional 
amendment  make  it  a  jDart  of  the  organic  law  ?  Again, 
on  page  8  of  his  pamphlet,  Dr.  Boberts  used  this  sin- 
gular language : 

As  a  result  of  the  new  status  created  by  reunion,  the 
directors  of  the  Union  Theological  Seminary  appeared  as 
petitioners  at  the  bar  of  the  General  Assembly.  They  were 
not  there,  it  is  to  be  noted,  to  perform  any  act  involving  the 
assertion  of  their  independence  as  over  against  the  Church. 
They  were  simply  petitioners,  requesting  from  the  supreme 
legislative  authority  of  the  Church  the  performance  of  an 
act,  which  the  General  Assembly  alone  was  empowered  by 
the  constitution  and  the  reunion  to  perform.  The  directors 
ask  "that  the  Assembly  may  be  pleased."  The  memorial, 
therefore,  as  a  petition  to  the  General  Assembly,  by  its  direc- 
tors, is  the  full  proof  that  tlie  Union  Theological  Seminary 
loas  prepared  to  accept  ecclesiastical  control. 

The  ecclesiastical  control  of  all  the  theological  semina- 
ries was  vested  by  reunion  in  the  reunited  Church,  and  could 
best  be  exercised  through  the  General  Assembly.     The  Union 


188  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

memorial  definitely  asked  "  that  the  General  Assembly  may 
be  pleased  to  adopt  it  as  a  plan  and  rule  in  the  exercise  of 
its  proprietorship  and  control  over  the  several  theological 
seminaries,"  etc.  The  directors  of  Union  Theological  Sem- 
inary recognized  distinctly  that  reunion  had  Avrought  a  change 
in  the  relations  of  that  institution.  Xowhere  in  tlie  memo- 
rial does  there  appear  any  objection  to  the  control  by  the 
Church,  or  any  assertion  of  independence  as  over  against  the 
Church. 

In  these  passages  Dr.  Roberts  apjDlied  to  Union  Sem- 
inary language  of  the  memorial  respecting  the  Assem- 
bly's "  proprietorship  and  control "  of  the  theological 
seminaries,  which  referred  exclusively  to  the  Old 
School  seminai'ies ;  and  this  is  the  simple  and  sole  ex- 
planation of  the  directors  of  Union  Seminary  coming 
to  the  Assembly  as  petitioners  and  asking  that  body  to 
"  be  j)leased  to  adopt  it  as  a  plan  and  rule,"  etc. 
Union  Seminary  sought  a  favor  not  for  itself,  but  for 
the  Old  School  seminaries  which  belonged  to  the  As- 
sembly,— a  favor  which  the  General  Assembly  alone 
could  grant, — and  it  naturally  used  the  language  of 
deference  and  solicitation,  but  in  the  very  act  of  doing 
so  it  evinced  its  own  freedom  and  independence  by 
offering  the  Assembly  a  veto  on  the  election  of  its  own 
professors,  in  case  the  favor  sought,  viz.:  the  transfer 
of  the  election  of  i^rofessors  in  the  Assembly's  institu- 
tions to  their  Boards  of  Directors,  were  granted. 

Had  Dr.  Roberts  aimed  in  his  Ecclesiastical  Status 
of  the  Theological  Seminaries  to  exemplify  the  type  of 


ANOTHER   DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  189 

Presbyterianism  most  repugnant  to  the  convictions  and 
practice  of  the  whole  New  School  Church,  from  1838 
to  1870,  he  could  not  have  done  so  more  effectually. 
Its  tone  and  its  arguments  were  alike  utterly  alien  to 
the  Presbyterianism  which  founded  and  had  always  in- 
spired the  Union  Theological  Seminary, 

The  contention  of  Dr.  Roberts  in  regard  to  the 
meaning  of  the  "  concurrent  declaration "  No.  9 ; 
namely,  that  it  pledged  both  branches  of  the  Church 
to  the  principle  of  ecclesiastical  control  over  the  theo- 
logical seminaries  as  a  term  of  reunion,  met  with  wide 
acceptance  in  those  sections  of  the  Church  which  had 
been  Old  School.  It  soon  became  a  common  belief 
among  them  that  the  concession  of  the  veto  power  ^re- 
ceded  reunion  as  one  of  its  conditions ;  and,  further- 
more, that  this  concession  was  made  in  fulfilment  of  a 
"  pledge  "  embodied  in  the  "  concurrent  declaration," 
No.  9.  The  Presbyterian  and  Reformed  Review  for 
July,  1892,  contained  an  article  on  the  104th  General 
Assembly,  written  by  its  able  and  scholarly  editor,  Dr. 
Warfield,  in  which  this  belief  is  expressed  in  the 
strongest  manner.  Here  are  jDassages  from  the  article 
(pp.  532-33)  bearing  on  this  point : 

As  to  the  request  itself — that  is,  to  concur  with  the  sem- 
inary in  annuHing  the  arrangement  of  1870 — the  Assembly 
could  not,  of  course,  yield  to  it.  Such  a  procedure  would 
introduce  that  inequality  in  the  relations  of  the  seminaries 
to  the  Church  which  was  recognized  as  intolerable  when  the 
negotiations   for   the    reunion   of   the    Old    and    New    School 


190  THE    I'NION   THEOLOGICAL   SE.MLXARV. 

Churches  were  in  progress,  and  without  adequate  pledges  for 
the  removal  of  which  that  reunion  was  fully  understood  to 
be  imjDossible.  The  generosity  of  Union's  concession  of  the 
existing  measure  of  control  by  the  Assembly  of  her  appoint- 
ments, consisted  just  in  this — that  by  engaging  to  concede 
this  control,  or  by  withholding  it,  it  was  in  the  power  of  the 
seminary  to  enable  or  to  prevent  the  consummation  of  re- 
union; and  it  chose  the  generous  path  of  concession  and 
thereby  rendered  reunion  possible.  It  ought  to  be  generally 
understood. 

1.  That  it  was  held  to  be  intolerable  that  the  Assembly 
of  the  reunited  Church  should  have  direct  control  of  the  elec- 
tions to  the  professorships  in  the  Old  School  seminaries  and 
no  control  over  them  in  the  New  School  seminaries. 

2.  That  reunion  could  not,  therefore,  have  been  consum- 
mated without  sufficient  pledges  that  all  the  seminaries  should 
be  placed  under  something  like  equal  ecclesiastical  control. 

3.  That  these  pledges  were  given  in  the  "  concurrent  dec- 
larations," and  carried  out  immediately,  the  concession  of  the 
veto  power  by  Union  being  the  act  by  which,  on  its  part, 
they  were  carried  out.  That  the  requirements  as  to  theolog- 
ical seminaries  were  not  made  part  of  the  reunion  contract 
itself,  but  only  a  debt  of  honor  (if  we  can  say  "only"  in  such 
a  case),  did  not  lead  the  fathers  of  the  reunion  period  to 
feel  them  any  the  less  binding. 

4.  That  the  ecclesiastical  control  actually  conceded  by 
Union  Seminary  in  the  proposition  of  1870,  was  less,  not 
more,  in  amount  than  had  been  contemplated  in  any  plan 
that  had  been  in  discussion  before  reunion  had  been  consum- 
mated— the  reunited  Church  meeting  the  generosity  of  the 
seminary  by  generously  yielding  to  its  representations  as  to 
the  legal  difficulties  in  the  way  of  the  concession  of  a  veto 
upon  the  election  of  directors. 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  191 

5.  That  to  annul  tliis  arrangement  of  1870,  as  regards 
Union  Seminary,  would  introduce  the  same  inequality  in  the 
ecclesiastical  relations  of  the  seminaries,  pledges  of  the  re- 
moval of  which  were  a  prerequisite  of  reunion  ;  and  that 
such  an  inequality  would  be  as  intolerable  now  as  it  was 
then.  Above  and  behind  all  this  there  stands  also  the  man- 
ifest duty  of  the  Church,  as  guardian  of  the  doctrinal  purity 
of  its  ministry,  to  retain  some  efficient  direct  control  of  the 
institutions  in  which  its  candidates  are  trained,  a  duty  safe- 
guarded by  the  requirement  of  the  form  of  government  that 
candidates  shall  be  placed  under  the  direction  of  "approved" 
teachers.  In  these  circimistances  the  action  of  the  Assembly 
could  not  be  doubtful.  But  the  generosity  of  the  form  in 
which  it  was  taken  passes  all  precedent ;  as,  indeed,  in  all 
the  discussions  and  in  all  the  rulings  of  the  Moderator,  gen- 
erous kindness  toward  a  great  institution  which  (however 
mistakenly)  felt  itself  aggrieved,  was  allowed  the  fullest  play. 

So  far  as  the  concession  of  the  veto  by  Union  Semi- 
nary is  concerned,  all  this  must  be  ascribed  to  entire 
misapprehension  of  the  facts  in  the  case.  No  doubt 
the  leading  opponents  of  reunion  regarded  "  inequal- 
ity "  in  the  relations  of  the  seminaries  to  the  Church 
as  an  "  intolerable  "  feature  of  the  situation.  This  is 
plainly  indicated  by  Dr.  A.  A.  Hodge's  noted  letter  to 
Henry  B.  Smith,  written  in  December,  1867.  But  the 
"  concurrent  declaration  "  contains  no  "  pledges,"  sim- 
ply a  "  recommendation  "  and  that  underscored.  Dr. 
Warfield  may,  I  think,  be  safely  challenged  to  produce 
any  evidence  that  Dr.  Beatty,  the  wise  and  great- 
hearted chairman  of  the  Old  School  Committee  on  Re- 


192  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

union,  ever  uttered  a  word  in  favor  of  requiring 
"  pledges  "  touching  New  School  theological  seminaries 
as  a  term  of  reunion.  But,  allowing  for  the  .moment 
that  Dr.  Warfield's  version  of  the  matter  is  correct,  how 
came  it  to  pass  that,  in  spite  of  the  solemn  "  pledges," 
which,  he  says,  made  reunion  possible,  its  ablest  oppo- 
nents. Dr.  Charles  Hodge,  Dr.  A.  A.  Hodge  and  Dr. 
Eobert  J.  Breckinridge — not  to  mention  others — still 
fought  against  it  to  the  bitter  end.  Why  were  they  not 
satisfied  with  the  "  pledges  "  ? 

Another  paper,  entitled  Union  Seminary  and  the  As- 
sembly, was  published  by  the  Rev.  William  McKibbin, 
D.D.,  of  Cincinnati,  in  reply  to  a  pamphlet  of  my  own. 
It  is  interesting  as  showing  what  strange  illusions  on 
the  whole  subject  got  possession  of  men  noted  for  their 
intelligence  and  Christian  character.  Dr.  McKibbin 
was  a  leading  member  of  the  Standing  Committee  on 
Theological  Seminaries  at  Detroit,  and  made  one  of  the 
ablest  speeches  in  favor  of  disapproving  Dr.  Briggs' 
transfer.  A  few  sentences  from  the  opening  part  of 
this  speech  will  show  how  he  regarded  the  question  at 
issue  : 

I  believe  that  we  are  taking  part  in  the  greatest  crisis 
through  which  tlie  Presbyterian  Church  has  ever  passed.  I 
believe  that  the  issue  or  the  issues  Avhich  were  involved  in 
the  Old  and  New  School  difficuhies  were  mere  bagatelles  com- 
pared with  the  issue  which  is  now  at  stake. 

It  is   not  surprising  that,  looking  at  the  subject  in 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  I93 

this  way,  Dr.  McKibbin  should  have  taken  very  strong- 
ground  against  Professor  Briggs.  His  speech  was  in 
an  excellent  spirit,  and  contained  more  or  less  with 
which  I,  for  one,  was  in  hearty  sympathy ;  as,  for  ex- 
ample, its  closing  sentences  :  "  I  Avant  that  Book  han- 
dled reverently  ;  and  I  don't  care  whether  it  be  in  the 
name  of  higher  criticism  or  of  an  angel  from  heaven, 
if  he  preaches  any  other  Gospel  than  that  of  reverence 
for  the  Word  of  God,  I  say  reject  him."  One  of  the 
most  remarkable  things  in  Dr.  McKibbin's  reply  to  my 
23amphlet,  was  his  contention  that  Union  Seminary  is 
"  the  property  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the 
United  States  of  America."  In  order  to  show  this,  fol- 
lowing Dr.  Boberts,  he  apjolied  the  language  of  the 
Union  memorial  of  1870  in  regard  to  the  Old  School 
seminaries,  which  were  all  under  the  proprietorship 
and  control  of  the  General  Assembly,  to  Union  Semi- 
nary. This  seems  almost  incredible  ;  but  here  are  the 
passages,  and  they  show,  as  hardly  anything  else  could, 
what  the  friends  of  Union  Seminary  had  to  contend 
with  in  the  way  of  argument. 

Union  Seminary  had  belonged  to  the  New  School  body, 
and  the  Assembly  of  the  reunited  Church  luid  inherited  all 
the  rights  and  privileges  which  this  relation  involved.  As 
the  debate  turned  upon  the  Assembly's  rights  undci^  the  com- 
pact, there  may  have  been  a  failure  to  recognize  and  suffi- 
ciently emphasize  this  other  and  primary  connection.  But 
that  such  relation  exists  is  unquestionable,  and  it  thro\vs 
great  light  upon  the  meaning  to  be  attached,  in  Union's 
memorial  of  1870,  to  the  words,  "That  the  General  Assem- 


194  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

bly  may  be  pleased  to  adopt  it  as  a  rule  and  plan,  in  the 
exercise  of  the  proprietorship  and  control  over  the  several 
theological  seminaries."     (p.  23). 

Can  there  be  any  doubt  that  Union  Seminary  did  belong 
to  the  New  School  Church  and  docs  now  belong  to  the 
reunited  Church,  which  inherited  all  the  rights  of  both 
branches  of  the  Church,  or,  to  use  the  language  of  the  plan 
of  reunion,  which  possesses  "all  the  legal  and  corporate 
rights  and  powers  pertaining  to  the  Church  previous  to  the 
division  of  1838,  and  all  the  legal  and  corporate  rights 
which  the  separate  Churches  now  possess "  ?  Can  Union, 
after  having  been  aided  and  endorsed  and  commended  as  and 
because  a  New  School  seminary,  and  after  securing  its  sup- 
port under  such  a.  representation  of  itself  for  over  thirty 
years,  now  deny  the  fact?  And  if  they  cannot  deny  this, 
can  they  deny  that  this  relation  has  been  transferred  to  the 
united  Church?  And  must  we  not  conclude  that  the  memo- 
rial of  the  Union  board  of  1870  expressed  the  exact  truth 
when  it  stated  this  relationship  to  be  one  of  proprietorship 
and  control      (pp.  27-8). 

Again,  if  the  New  School  body  did  convey  its  "proprie- 
torship and  control  "  to  the  united  Church,  are  not  its  mem- 
bers who  are  now  living  bound  to  protest  against  a 
course  which  implies  that  they  conveyed  powers  they  did  not 
hold,  and  transferred  rights  they  did  not  possess?  If  the 
United  States  Government  has  a  right  to  demand  that  the 
Russian  Government  in  the  Behring  Sea  matter  shall  sustain 
it  in  the  assertion  of  all  the  rights  which  Russia  claimed  to 
have  possessed  and  transferred  to  it,  against  Eugland's 
coimterclaim,  has  not  the  united  Church  a  right  to  demand 
that  all  members  of  the  New  School  body  now  living  shall 
sustain  it  in  asserting  rights  transferred  to  it  by  the  New 
School  body?     (pp.  28-9). 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  195 

This  analogy  between  the  case  of  the  General  As- 
sembly against  Union  Seminary  and  that  of  the  United 
States  Government  against  England  in  the  Behring 
Sea  matter,  recalls  Fluellen's  account  of  the  resem- 
blance between  Harry  of  Monmouth  and  Alexander 
the  Great :  "  There  is  a  river  in  Macedon  ;  and  there 
is  also,  moreover,  a  river  at  Monmouth  ;  .  .  .  and 
there  is  salmons  in  both."  If  the  question  were  whether 
before  1870,  Union  was  a  New  School  seminary  and 
belonged,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  to  the  New 
School  Church,  though  in  no  wise  under  the  proprie- 
torship and  control  of  its  General  Assembly,  the  an- 
swer would  be  plain  and  simple.  Dr.  McKibbin's  quo- 
tations from  the  New  School  minutes  to  prove  this  are 
all  so  many  mares'  nests.  But  his  contention  went  far 
beyond  this.  "  The  idea,"  he  said,  "  that  the  New 
School  body  had  any  different  mode  of  connection  with 
its  seminaries  from  the  Old  School  body,  or  the  Church 
before  the  division,  is  a  jiure  fiction.  Both  New  School 
and  Old  School  claimed  all  the  powers  of  the  Church 
before  the  division,  but  were  only  able  partially  to  en- 
force their  claim.  The  New  School  claimed  Princeton, 
and  Western,  and  the  Old  School  claimed  Union,  Au- 
burn, and  Lane."  Really,  had  Dr.  McKibbin  con- 
tended that  the  Old  School  "  claimed  "  Yale  and  Hart- 
ford and  Andover  and  Bangor,  it  would  not  have  been 
a  bit  more  preposterous.  When,  where,  and  in  what 
manner  did  the  Old  School  ever  "  claim  "  Union  Sem- 
inary ? 


196  ^^^    CN/ON   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

The  closing  j^art  of  Dr.  jMcKibbin's  rej^ly  is  so  cur- 
ious and  suggestive  that  I  quote  almost  the  whole  of  it. 
Nothing  could  indicate  more  clearly  the  ecclesiastical 
animus  which  marked  his  paper.  The  italics  are  his 
own  : 

THE    POWER   OF   THE   ASSEMBLY    TO    ENFORCE   THE    FULFILL- 
MENT   OF     THE    COMPACT. 

The  question  has  been  raised  as  to  what  the  General 
Assembly  is  "  going  to  do  about  it "  in  case  Union  Semi- 
nary continues  to  resist  its  authority,  or  severs  its  connection 
with  the  Presbyterian  Church.  This  question  is  squarely 
raised  by  Dr.  Prentiss  with  reference  to  Union's  relation  to 
the  Assembly  when  he  says  :  "The  single  tie  which  in  1870 
of  its  own  free  will,  connected  it  with  the  General  Assem- 
bly, by  its  own  free  act  it  can  sever  at  any  moment  for 
good  and  sufficient  reasons."  Of  course  we  are  to  infer  that 
Union  claims  to  be  the  sole  judge  of  what  are  good  and 
sufficient  reasons.  This  sounds  like  a  menace.  Coming 
from  one  who  is  not  "  a  man  of  war "  it  cannot  be  attrib- 
uted to  abnormal  belligerency,  or  an  easily  excited  tempera- 
ment. The  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United  States  of  America 
must  face  this  question.  Here  is  the  cry  of  seminary  sover- 
eignty raised  as  against  the  federal  supremacy  of  the  whole 
Church.  It  sounds  like  a  cry  heard  in  1861  with  reference 
to  State  sovereignty.  And  there  is  ten  times  more  said  in 
the  constitution  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  witli  reference 
to  its  federal  supremacy  than  there  was  in  the  constitution 
of  the  United  States  of  America  with  reference  to  the  su- 
premacy of  the  general  government.  Let  Union,  before  this 
cry  becomes  more  distinct  and  threatening,  remember  that  a 
majority  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  wore  either  participants 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  197 

in  or  sympathizing  witnesses  of  the  strngglo  in  which  that 
question  was  settled,  and  that  they  Avill  not  be  unequal  to 
the  vindication  in  the  ecclesiastical  sphere  of  a  principle  as 
fundamental  to  the  existence  and  integrity  of  the  Presby- 
terian Church  as  it  was  to  the  existence  and  integrity  of  the 
nation.  Let  us  then  see  what  answer  can  be  framed  as  to 
what  the  General  Assembly  could  do. 

1.  The  Assembly,  so  long  as  Union  defies  its  authority, 
may,  without  surrendering  any  of  its  own  rights,  decline  to 
give  to  Union  "  official  recognition  and  approbation "  and 
call  the  attention  of  the  Presbyteries  to  the  form  of  govern- 
ment, chapter  xiv,  section  5,  in  which,  "  it  is  recommended 
that  no  candidate,  except  in  extraordinary  cases,  be  licensed 
unless  he  shall  have  studied  divinity  at  least  two  years, 
under  some  approved  divine  or  professor  of  theology." 

2.  It  can  arraign  Union's  directors  before  the  bar  of  the 
Church,  if,  after  heresy  is  proven  against  one  of  its  profes- 
sors, they  continue  to  retain  him  as  an  instructor  in  the 
institution,  as  faithless  to  their  ordination  vows,  viz  :  "  To 
study  the  peace,  purity  and  unity  of  the  Church,"  for  they 
would  then  aid  and  abet  the  propagation  of  such  heresy. 
Fadt  per  alium,  facit  per  se. 

3.  It  can  have  recourse  to  the  civil  courts.  AYhat  the 
civil  rights  of  the  Assembly  are,  and  the  rights  of  donors  and 
directors  in  sympathy  wdth  the  Assembly,  and  Avhat  the  mode 
or  modes  of  enforcing  them,  I  will  not  discuss.  It  is  to  be 
hoped  that  no  such  discussion  will  be  necessary  in  the  set- 
tlement of  the  questions  at  issue. 

Two  other  pamphlets  against  Union  Seminary  ought 
to  be  noticed,  for  they  were  scattered  broadcast  through- 
out the  Presbyterian  Church  and  did  much  to  mystify 
and  mislead  even  fair-minded,  good  men.    Their  author 


198  THE   UNION  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

appeared  upon  the  scene  a  year  or  so  later  than  Dr. 
William  H.  Roberts  and  Dr.  McKibbin ;  but  he  soon 
made  u]?  for  lost  time  and  was  widely  regarded  as  far 
surpassing  them  in  the  lawyer-like  acuteness  and  vigor 
of  his  attacks.  One  of  his  papers  was  first  published 
in  the  New  York  Sun  of  October  17,  1892,  a  few  days 
after  the  Board  of  Directors  of  Union  Seminar}^  had 
voted  to  annul  the  agreement  of  1870.  It  soon  ap- 
peared in  a  pamphlet  form  under  the  title.  Union  Theo- 
logical Seminary  vs.  the  General  Assembly  of  the 
Presbyterian  Church.  The  Case  to  Date,  by  Thomas 
McDougal,  Cincinnati.  In  reading  this  pamphlet  I 
was  inclined  to  apjDly  to  it  an  expression  my  brother 
once  used  in  depicting  the  rejDort  of  the  United  States 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  on  the  notorious  defalcations 
of  Swartwout  and  others.  He  called  it  "a  fragment 
of  chaos."  It  were  hard  to  say  whether  ignorance  of 
the  law  and  facts  in  the  case,  or  sweeiDing,  not  to  say 
truculent,  charges  against  the  moral  character  and  con- 
duct of  the  directors  of  Union  Seminary  contributed 
the  largest  share  to  this  chaotic  mixture.  A  few  ex- 
tracts will  enable  the  reader  to  judge  for  himself: 

Between  1870  and  1892  Union  Seminary  has  received 
from  the  membership  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  over  one 
million  and  a  half  dollars,  on  the  faith  of  its  contract  relation 
with  the  Assembly,  and  on  its  express  representation  made 
in  circulars,  constitution,  by-laws,  personal  appeals  and 
otherwise,  that  the  seminary  was  distinctively  Presbyterian, 
and  was,  by  the  compact  of  1870,  in  ecck^siastical  connection 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  199 

with  the  Presbyterian  Church,  on  the  same  footing  with  the 
other  seminaries  of  that  Church. 

The  Assembly  having  refused  to  surrender  its  contract 
rights,  and  to  annul  the  contract,  the  seminary,  of  its  own 
motion,  now  declares  that  the  contract  is  illegal  and  void,  be- 
cause, as  it  alleges,  of  the  lack  of  corporate  power  on  its  part 
to  make  the  same,  refuses  to  obey  its  terms,  and,  without  the 
consent  of  the  Assembly,  the  party  to  the  contract,  attempts 
to  annul  the  same.  It  constitutes  itself  a  judicial  forum  to 
try  the  question  of  the  validity  of  the  contract  which  it  had 
made,  without  a  hearing  from  the  other  party,  and  acting  as 
the  judge  in  its  own  case,  a  thing  which  no  civil  court  in 
Christendom  could,  or  would,  attempt  to  do,  annuls  its  own 
contract,  and  that  without  a  return  to  the  other  party  of 
what  it  had  received  on  the  faith  of  the  contract  and  the  re- 
lation as  represented  by  it.  In  order  to  justify  its  action  in 
refusing  to  carry  out  its  contract — which  it  concedes  is  bind- 
ing if  it  had  the  power  to  make  it — it  obtains  from  a  learned 
lawyer,  whom  it  employs,  an  opinion  that  it  had  no  power 
under  the  charter  to  make  the  contract,  and  that  therefore 
no  contract  in  fact  exists. 

Here  is  Mr.  McDougall's  view  of  the  very  eminent 
lawyer  whose  opinion  the  seminary  had  ventured  to 
solicit : 

We  are  advised  that  the  learned  counsel  who  gave  the 
opinion  to  the  seminary  is  not  a  member  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church,  nor  a  believer  in  the  Christian  faith,  and  assume 
that  he  was  selected  for  the  purpose,  because  of  his  ability, 
and  of  being  wholly  disinterested  and  without  bias  so  fir  as 
the  Christian  faith  could  bias  him  in  his  opinion.  He  knew, 
and  the  board  knew  that  neither  he  nor  the  board  Avas  com- 


200  ^"^^    UXIO.V   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINAR V. 

petent  authority  to  determine  the  question  between  the  par- 
ties, of  the  validity  of  the  contract.  Both  knew  that  a 
competent  forum  existed  in  which  that  question  could  be 
authoritatively  decided,  and  both  knew  the  only  party  inter- 
ested in  the  contract  that  can  now  legitimately  question  its 
validity  on  the  ground  of  charter  power,  is  the  State  of  New 
York,  and  that  that  State  has  never  questioned  the  exercise 
of  the  power  by  the  seminary,  but  has  knowingly  permitted 
its  exercise  for  a  period  of  more  than  twenty  years,  without 
question. 

It  is  a  novel  experience  in  jurisprudence  to  find  a  party 
to  the  contract,  and  one  who  has  received  the  benefits  of  the 
contract  on  its  part  calling  in  its  own  lawyer  to  sit  in  judg- 
ment upon  the  validity  of  the  contract  thus  made,  and  decid- 
ing to  annul  it  and  declare  it  illegal  and  void,  on  the  ground 
of  a  want  of  authority  on  its  part  to  make  it,  and  refusing 
to  perform  its  terms,  and  that  without  returning  the  consid- 
eration it  has  received  on  the  faith  of  the  contract  and  the 
relation  created  by  it,  and  at  the  same  time  placing  itself  on 
high  moral  grounds,  and  averring  that  if  it  had  the  power  to 
make  the  contract,  it  would  willingly  obey  it. 

Here  is  Mr.  McDougall's  way  of  looking  at  the  posi- 
tion and  office  of  such  professors  of  Christian  theology 
and  learning  as  Archibald  Alexander,  Charles  Hodge, 
Addison  Alexander,  Edward  Kobinson,  Thomas  H. 
Skinner,  Henry  B.  Smith,  W.  G.  T.  Shedd,  William 
Adams,  Roswell  D.  Hitchcock  and  Philip  Schaff : 

The  professors  and  teachers  are  merely  employees  of  the 
corporation.  They  are  not  named  in  the  charter,  perform 
no  essential  corporate  function,  and  are  in  no  sense  necessary 


ANOTHER   DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  201 

to  corporate  existence.  How  then  can  their  employment, 
however  or  by  whoever  made,  be  held  to  be  a  delegation  or 
surrender  of  corporate  power. 

Why  could  not  Union  '  Seminary  create  the  office  of  a 
general  manager  and  refuse  to  appoint  any  professor  he  dis- 
approved of?  or  contract  with  another  seminary  to  supply 
it  with  teaching,  or  to  appoint  only  such  teachers  as  it 
would  approve?  If  it  may  do  this  for  one  professor  for  one 
year,  why  not  for  all  and  for  an  indefinite  number  of  years  ? 
Does  the  validity  of  the  exercise  of  the  power  as  to  being 
within  the  charter  or  in  excess  of  it  depend  on  the  number 
of  the  professors  to  be  approved  of,  or  the  length  of  time 
the  right  of  approval  is  exercised  ? 

The  professors  hold  the  same  corporate  relation  to  the 
seminary,  as  the  janitor,  or  the  book-keeper,  or  the  errand 
boy ;  and  are  on  the  same  plane  as  the  foreman,  superin- 
tendent or  manager  of  a  manufacturing  company. 

We  are  unable  to  find  an  adjudicated  case  by  any  court 
sustaining  the  proposition  as  laid  down  by  counsel  for  the 
seminary,  that  a  corporation  created  for  the  purpose  of  car- 
rying on  a  business  of  any  kind  can  not  contract  with  the 
purchaser  of  its  product,  whether  that  product  be  houses, 
engines  or  ministers,  to  turn  out  that  product  on  a  model 
satisfactory  to  the  purchaser ;  and  in  order  to  that  end,  shall 
have  the  employment  of  the  architect,  mechanic  or  teacher, 
who  is  to  make  the  product  which  he  is  to  take,  conditioned 
on  his  approval.  That  is  all  that  underlies  the  contract 
between  the  Assembly  and  the  seminary,  and  yet,  as  we 
have  already  seen,  the  seminary  as  a  party  to  that  contract 
hires  its  own  attorney,  constitutes  itself  its  own  judge  in  the 
case,  and  jealous  of  the  interests  of  the  corporation,  and 
zealous  for  good  faith  and  good  morals,  determines  that  such 
a  contract   is  not  within  the  scope   of  its   corporate    powers, 


202  ^^^    LNIO.y   THEOLOGICAL   SEMIXARY. 

is  therefore  illegal  and  void,  and  refuses  to  perform  it, 
while  retaining  the  consideration  it  has  received  by  reason 
of  it. 

And  here  is  the  manner  in  which  Mr.  Thomas  Mc- 
Dougall  exj3ressed  his  mind  about  the  venerable  Charles 
Butler,  William  A.  Booth,  D.  Willis  James,  John 
Crosby  Brown,  William  E.  Dodge,  Morris  K.  Jesup 
and  others  like  them,  in  executing  their  solemn  trust 
as  directors  of  Union  Seminary  : 

We  submit  that  if  such  an  attitude  had  been  assumed  by 
a  corporation  whose  directors  were  Mohammedans  or  Hin- 
doos, its  conduct  might  have  been  assailed  as  dishonest,  im- 
moral, and  a  deliberate  breach  of  faith.  Does  it  alter  the 
case  that  the  conduct  is  that  of  a  Board  of  Directors,  whose 
members  are  members  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  and  who 
take  their  code  of  morals  on  this  important  question  from 
their  attorney,  who  has  given  them  the  opinion  he  has,  on 
high  moral  grounds,  without  even  suggesting  to  his  clients 
the  moral  obligations  of  such  a  contract  and  the  duty  of 
returning  the  million  and  a  half  dollars  which  they  have 
received  on  the  faith  of  the  contract,  and  the  relation  created 
by  it  with  the  Presbyterian    Church. 

And  here  is  the  conclusion  of  the  wdiole  matter  ac- 
cording; to  "  The  Case  to  Date  "  : 


'}-> 


The  action  of  the  board  in  annulling  the  compact  of  1870 
and  refusing  to  discharge  the  moral  obligations  of  that  con- 
tract, evidences  conclusively — all  protestation  to  the  contrary — 
that  no  moral  obligations  will  be  permitted  to  interfere  with 
her  separation  from  the  Presbyterian  Church.      Her  constitu- 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  203 

tion,  by-laws  and  oaths  of  allegiance  to  the  Presbyterian 
Church  are  her  own  voluntary  acts,  which  she  can  at  any 
moment  annul  or  abandon.  She  may  require  her  faculty  to 
teach  Unitarianism  or  Popery,  and  no  legal  power  can  pre- 
vent her  action  and  the  application  of  her  funds  to  that  end. 

In  the  absence  of  any  legal  relation  to  the  Presbyterian 
Church  by  charter  or  contract,  she  is  in  no  sense  and  can 
never  be  in  any  sense  a  Presbyterian  seminary. 

We  assume  it  is  safe  .to  affirm  that  every  dollar  of  her 
endowment  and  property  received  prior  to  1892  was  given 
to  her  on  the  belief  whether  expressed  or  not,  that  she  was 
and  would  continue  to  be  a  Presbyterian  seminary.  Many 
of  the  donors  who  were  Presbyterians  have  passed  away. 
In  the  absence  of  any  expressions  to  the  contrary  in  making 
their  gifts,  in  view  of  the  compact  of  1870,  the  fact  that  the 
directors  were  Presbyterians,  the  representations  in  constitu- 
tion and  by-laws,  the  history  of  the  seminary  and  otherwise 
the  conclusive  presumption  is  that  all  gifts  made  by  Presby- 
terians were  made  to  what  they  believed  to  be  a  Presbyterian 
seminary.  What  an  object  lesson  to  the  Church  and  the 
world,  we  have  in  the  conduct  of  her  directors.  Over  two 
millions  of  dollars  thus  contributed,  free  to  be  used  for  all 
time  to  come  in  teaching  any  kind  of  theology  other  than 
that  which  donors  intended  it  should  be  used  to  teach,  and 
no  power  to  prevent  the  misapplication  of  the  funds. 

How  perfectly  idle  to  talk  of  moral  obligations  being 
sufficient  to  insure  the  fulfillment  of  trust  obligations.  The 
compact  of  1870  is  the  test  of  the  strength  of  the  sense  of 
moral  obligations  possessed  by  the  present  directors  of  Union 
Seminary. 

This  compact  repudiated  and  the  money  retained,  it  is 
worse  than  idle  to  talk  of  moral  obligations  being  any  safe- 
guard for  the  protection  of  funds  contributed  for  the  purposes 


204  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

named,    or    for    the  fulfillment  of  either  legal  or  moral  con- 
tract obligations. 

The  question  is  not  one  of  sentiment ;  it  is  not  one  of  the 
honesty  or  the  sincerity  of  the  belief  of  the  Board  of  Direc- 
tors. The  question  is  above  all  such  considerations,  and  is 
not  to  be  beclouded  or  lost  sight  of  by  fireworks  or  senti- 
ment without  reason  as  to  the  high  character  or  disinterested- 
ness of  the  directors.  Is  there  any  reason,  in  law  or 
morals,  that  will  justify  them  in  refusing  to  carry  out  their 
contract,  while  retaining  the  million  and  a  half  of  dollars 
received  from  the  Presbyterian  Church  on  the  faith  of  the 
seminary  being  Presbyterian  by  reason  of  the  relation  creat- 
ed by  the  contract  ? 

Not  very  long  after  "  The  Case  to  Date  "  appeared, 
Mr.  McDougall  published  a  second  pamphlet,  in 
which  he  took  me  to  task  with  no  little  severity.* 

It  was  another  "  fragment  of  chaos,"  and  even  sur- 
passed the  first  as  a  legal,  ethical  and  ecclesiastical  cu- 
riosity. Nothing  quite  like  it,  as  far  as  I  know^,  had 
before  seen  the  light.  Its  author  evidently  had  not 
the  slightest  knowledge  of  me.  He  called  me  an  "  ec- 
clesiastical lawyer  "  and  said  I  w^as  one  of  the  directors 
of  Union  Seminary.  All  he  seemed  to  know  about  me 
was  that  I  had  written  a  pamphlet  defending  Union 
Seminary  against  the  charges  of  Mr.  J.  J.  McCook  at 
Detroit,  in  regard  to  ex-Governor  Morgan's  and  Mr. 


*The  Moral  Qualtity  of  the  Conduct  of  the  Directors  of  Union  Semi- 
nary— An  open  letter  to  the  Rev.  George  L.  Prentiss,  D.D. — A  Lesson  in 
Ecclesiastical  Morals,  Construction  of  Ecclesiastical  Control,  etc.,  by  Thomas 
McDougall,  Cincinnati. — Robert  Clarke  «&  Co.,  Printers,  1893. 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  205 

James  Brown's  munificent  gifts  to  the  institution. 
As  in  the  case  of  Dr.  W.  H.  Koberts  and  of  Dr. 
McKibbin,  I  will  give  a  few  characteristic  passages  from 
this  j)amphlet  and  leave  every  candid  reader  to  decide 
for  himself  whether  they  are  marked  by  such  an  im- 
partial, humble  and  truth-loving  spirit  as  fairly  entitled 
their  author  to  sit  in  judgment  upon  "the  moral  con- 
duct of  the  directors  of  Union  Seminary." 

One  of  Mr.  McDougall's  points  was  that  the  j)lan 
and  constitution  of  Union  Seminary  of  themselves 
afforded  no  proper  safeguard  against  the  misappropria- 
tion of  its  funds,  or  the  abandonment  of  its  Presbyterian 
principles  :  in  other  words,  the  directors  of  Union  Sem- 
inary at  any  moment,  if  they  chose  to  do  it,  could  per- 
jure themselves,  violate  their  solemn  pledge  and  turn 
the  institution  over  to  the  support  of  any  kind  of  re- 
ligious error  or  unbelief !  He  refers  to  this  point  again 
and  again  :  "  By  the  agreement  of  1870  the  institution 
had  put  itself  under  the  control  of  the  General  Assem- 
bly and  was  henceforth  legally  bound  to  use  Mr. 
Brown's  and  Governor  Morgan's  and  other  gifts  exclu- 
sively for  Presbyterian  purposes."  As  to  what  is  Pres- 
byterian, and  what  is  not,  the  General  Assembly  is  the 
suj)reme  judicatory,  and  its  decisions  are  final  and 
binding  on  all  parties  in  the  denomination.  Address- 
ing me,  he  says : 

It  would  be  interesting  to  have  you  discuss  how 
Union  Seminary  is  in  any  sense  a  Presbyterian  semi- 
nary, if  the  compact  of   1870  is  annulled.     How  is  it  Pres- 


206  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

byterian  in  the  sense  that  any  gift  made  to  it  on  the  faith 
that  it  was  a  Presbyterian  seminary  whose  orthodoxy  was 
guaranteed  can  be  secured  beyond  peradventure  for  the 
purposes  for  wliich  it  was  given.  ...  If  you  could 
only  realize  that  a  professor,  in  the  eyes  of  the  law,  is 
nothing  more  than  an  employee,  and  occupies  no  higher  legal 
relation  than  the  janitor  or  the  bookkeeper,  and  is  no  more 
essential  to  the  corporate  vitality  than  these  servants  are, 
you  might  change  your  conclusions  as  to  what  is  and  what 
is  not  a  delegation  of  corporate  power.  One  of  the  troubles 
with  this  whole  question  grows  out  of  what  appears  to  be  a 
sacred,  mysterious,  indefinable,  inexplicable  relation  which 
professors  sustain  to  the  seminaries  of  the  Church.  They  are 
mere  servants,  who  seem  to  be  treated,  however,  as  if  they 
were  greater  than  their  masters,  creatures  greater  than  their 
Creator.  Their  appointment,  by  whomsoever  made,  and  how- 
ever made,  is  no  more  a  delegation  of  corporate  power  than 
is  the  appointment  of  the  janitor  or  the  engineer,  and  it  is 
an  extraordinary  assumption  to  place  them  on  an  equality, 
so  far  as  corporate  functions  are  concerned,  with  the  direc- 
tors of  the  corporation,  as  you  have  done. 

The  present  "directors,  in  annulling  the  compact  of  1870, 
and  asserting  what  they  choose  to  call  the  "  independence  of 
the  seminary,  as  provided  by  its  charter,"  have  placed  them- 
selves in  the  attitude  of  saying:  "We  are  a  .Presbyterian 
seminary  only  by  our  voluntary  act.  So  long  as  we  choose 
to  be  a  loyal  Presbyterian  seminary,  we  will  be  loyal  as  a 
matter  of  choice,  but  not  of  obligation.  When  it  is  our  in- 
terest or  pleasure  to  be  disloyal,  we  propose  to  be  in  a 
position  to  carry  out  our  interest  or  pleasure.  Under  no  cir- 
cumstances do  we  intend  the  Presbyterian  Church,  either 
through  the  General  Assembly  or  any  of  its  members,  to  in- 
terfere with  us,  or  compel  us  to  be  Presbyterian,  or  to  com- 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HLSTORV.  207 

jDel  lis  to  use  our  funds  for  the  purpose  of  teaching  any 
theology  that  we  do  not  desire  to  have  taught.  We  will  be 
Presbyterian  when  it  suits  us,  otherwise  when  we  choose  to 
be.  Whatever  trust  attaches  to  the  funds  given  to  us,  moral 
or  otherwise,  will  not  be  permitted  by  us  to  stand  in  the 
way  of  our  complete  independence  of  Presbyterian  control." 
Such  is  the  position  assumed  by  the  present  directors  of 
Union  Seminary,  and  such  is  their  complete  ignoring  of  the 
moral  obligations  resting  upon  them  by  the  compact  of  1870, 
and  the  trust  relation  they  sustain  to  the  donors  of  the  money 
given  to  them  to  be  used  for  the  purjjose  of  a  Presbyterian 
seminary. 

union's   purpose    IX    MAKING   THE    COMPACT   OF  1870. 

Union  Seminary  sought,  by  the  compact  of  1870,  to  place 
itself  in  such  relation  to  the  Presbyterian  Church  as  would 
give  it  the  confidence,  indorsement  and  patronage  of  the  de- 
nomination, in  order  that  it  might  obtain  funds  from  the 
membership  of  that  Church.  Whatever  may  be  said  touch- 
ing the  legal  quality  of  the  relation  thus  created,  the  moral 
obligation  is  of  as  high  a  quality  as  the  ordination  vow  of  a 
minister,  and  the  moral  trust  attaching  to  the  gifts  thus  re- 
ceived, is  of  as  binding  a  character  in  the  forum  of  conscience 
as  any  trust,  whether  legally  enforceable  or  otherwise.  Fidelity 
to  its  obligations,  and  the  relations  thus  created,  cannot  be 
affected  by  the  fireworks  of  liberality,  broad  views  and  liberal 
instruction. 

True  liberty  is  implicit  obedience  to  law,  and  fidelity  to 
obligation.  True  orthodoxy  is  true  liberty.  True  charity  is 
as  just  as  it  is  generous,  and  above  all  things,  seeketh  not 
her  own,  but  is  loyal  oven  unto  death  to  the  obligations  it 
has  assumed  toward  others. 


208  '^f^^    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

The  modern  chatter  that  "liberty  is  preferable  to  ortho- 
doxy," and  the  gush  of  charity  that  deliberately  violates 
moral  obligations,  are  destructive  of  that  righteousness  which 
is  the  crowning  glory  of  the  Christian  religion,  and  of  which 
loyal  Presbyterians  should  be  the  highest  exponents. 

This  "  open  letter  "  closes  with  the  following  literary 
suggestion  to  me : 

It  might  be  interesting,  instructive  and  profitable  to 
have  you  write  a  treatise  on  the  quality  of  moral  and  con- 
tract obligations,  and  fidelity  to  trust  relations,  taking  the 
high  grounds  on  these  subjects  which  men  of  business  honor 
occupy.  Such  a  treatise  might  prove  in  this  controversy  a 
moral  tonic,  a  breath  of  fresh  air  in  a  foggy  atmosphere,  and 
do  more  to  aid  clear  thinking  and  right  acting  than  all  the 
special  pleas  heretofore  made  by  you  for  the  directors  of 
Union  Seminary — of  which  you  are  one — in  attempting  to 
cancel  the  compact  of  1870,  and  ignoring  the  moral  obliga- 
tions and  trust  relations  they  occupy  to  the  Presbyterian 
Church,  and  tlie  donors  of  the  funds  to  the  seminary. 

Yours   respectfully, 

Thomas  McDougall. 

Cincinnati,  January  9,  1893. 

I  will  give  a  single  extract  from  the  supplementary 
"  Lesson  in  Ecclesiastical  Morals  " — a  lesson  intended, 
perhaps,  to  show  me  how  and  in  what  temj^er  my 
"  treatise  "  should  he  written. 

Dr.  Prentiss  was  one  of  the  directors  of  Union  Seminary 
when  the  agreement  was  made.  It  is  remarkable  that  he 
did  not  present  a  copy  of  his  ecclesiastical  lexicon  to  the 
General  Assembly,  and  draw  attention  to  his  construction  of 
this  contract,  before  the  Assembly  entered  into  it,  and  the 
other  seminaries  of  the  Church  became  parties  to  it. 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  209 

If  such  is  the  teaching  on  the  subject  of  contracts  in  eccle- 
siastical circles,  what  is  to  be  thought  of  the  students  who 
are  moulded  by  such  teachers  ?  What  kind  of  a  product  will 
we  receive  at  the  hands  of  such  instructors  ?  What  appre- 
ciation of  the  obligation  of  ordination  vows  and  fidelity  to 
the  faith  and  creed  of  the  Church  can  be  expected  from  the 
students  who  are  taught  "  that  agreements  are  not  legal  com- 
pacts, but  only  expressions  of  confidence  and  good  will,  acts 
of  generosity  and  courtesy,"  and  that  ordination  voavs  and 
loyalty  to  the  faith,  purity,  peace  and  discipline  of  the 
Church  may  lose  their  most  essential  virtue  and  all  their 
beauty,  the  moment  they  are  invested  with  the  rigidity  and 
binding  force  of  a  legal  contract? 

In  view  of  such  teaching  is  it  remarkable  that  the  direc- 
tors of  Union  Seminary,  after  declaring  in  1891,  in  answer 
to  the  Assembly's  Conference  Committee,  that  they  "  fully 
recognized  the  binding  force  of  the  agreement  of  1870,  until 
it  shall  be  proved  to  be  illegal  or  shall  be  properly  abro- 
gated," have  attempted  to  annul  the  agreement,  and  have 
refused  to  discharge  its  legal,  moral  and  trust  obligations 
before  it  has  been  proven  illegal,  or  has  been  properly  abro- 
gated? To  call  in  their  own  lawyer,  ask  for  his  own  opin- 
ion— ^and  that  without  notice  or  consent  of  the  other  party — 
and  upon  that  opinion  such  as  it  is,  as  if  it  were  a  judicial 
fiat  in  a  proper  case,  declare  the  contract  illegal,  is  without 
a  parallel  in  history. 

The  money  received  from  Presbyterians  for  Presbyterian 
uses  while  the  compact  of  1870  and  the  relations  and  obliga- 
tions it  created  existed,  and  while  the  directors  were  loudly 
proclaiming  their  loyalty  to  the  Presbyterian  Church,  and  which 
amounts  to  one  and  a  half  million  dollars,  is  coolly  retained,  no 
tender  is  made  to  those  from  whom  it  was  thus  obtained,  and 
the  Church  is  politely  invited  to  attend  to  its  own   business. 


210  ^^^    UNION   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

Before  passing  from  this  most  disagreeable  subject  I 
desire  once  more  to  show  how  utterly  gratuitous  and 
without  foundation  were  the  charges,  each  and  all, 
which  Mr.  McDougall  and  so  many  other  enemies  of 
Union  Seminary  brought,  year  after  year,  against  the 
good  faith,  integrity  and  Christian  honor  of  the  direc- 
tors of  that  institution.  I  will  give  two  papers  bearing 
upon  the  subject ;  one  a  summary  statement  in  regard 
to  the  endowments  of  the  seminary,  prepared  at  my 
request  by  Mr.  Kingsley,  its  recorder  and  treasurer ; 
the  other,  entitled  Union  and  the  General  Assembly, 
being  a  letter  to  the  editor  of  the  New  York  Tribune 
by  John  T.  Terry,  an  eminent  merchant  of  New  York. 
Here  is  Mr.  Kingsley's  paper  : 

Tlie  Board  of  Directors  of  Union  Theological  Seminary 
in  the  autumn  of  1869,  with  the  purpose  of  removal,  pur- 
chased a  site  in  the  upper  part  of  the  city,  and  their  plans 
for  such  removal  made  necessary  a  largely  increased  endow- 
ment, estimated  at  $500,000.  The  work  of  procuring  the 
required  amount  was  undertaken  with  great  energy.  The 
first  effort  was  limited  to  $300,000,  and  at  the  regular  Jan- 
uary (1870)  meeting,  a  public  appeal  was  agreed  upon  which 
was  issued  over  the  several  signatures  of  the  entire  directo- 
rate. 

Rev.  Edwin  F.  Hatfield,  D.D.,  was  appointed  financial 
agent,  and  he  entered  promptly  upon  his  official  duty.  A 
portion  of  the  compensation  for  Dr.  Hatfield's  service  was 
conditioned  upon  the  obtaining  the  full  amount  of  this  un- 
dertaking, and  as  the  records  of  January,  1871,  show  the 
payment  of  the  additional  sum,  no  better  evidence  of  the 
complete  success  of  the  effort  could  be  desired. 

The  ])ul)lic  appeal  under  which  this  endowment  was  ol)- 
tained,  made  no  reference  to  any  relations  with    the    Cieneral 


ANOTHER   DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  211 

Assembly,  for  the  excellent  reason  that  no  snch  relations 
existed,  and  none  were  then  contemplated.  In  the  beginning 
of  the  year  1871,  encouraged  by  the  success  of  the  year  pre- 
ceding, jubilant  over  the  accomplished  reunion,  and  hopeful  in 
view  of  the  "  agreement"  with  the  General  Assembly  which  had 
been  perfected  in  May,  1870,  the  board  undertook  to  raise 
the  remaining  $200,000.  The  agency  of  Dr.  Hatfield  was 
continued  and  an  appeal  to  the  benevolent  public  was  issued, 
in  which  the  new  relations  with  the  General  Assembly  were 
mentioned  with  emphasis.  The  result  of  this  eifort  and  this 
ajjpeal  was  disappointing.  From  a  careful  examination  of 
the  seminary's  financial  records  it  appears  that  beyond  the 
$300,000  subscribed  under  the  first  appeal,  which  was  paya- 
ble at  the  option  of  the  subscribers  in  one,  two  and  three 
years,  not  one-half  of  the  desired  amount  was  realized.  A 
memorandum  book  containing  in  Dr.  Hatfield's  own  hand- 
Avriting,  dated  in  1872,  what  is  evidently  a  complete  list  of 
subscriptions  to  the  fund  gives  an  aggregate  of  something  less 
than  $350,000  which  accords  substantially  with  the  treasurer's 
accounts,  and  marks  the  second  effort  as  a  signal  failure. 

The  permanent  endowments  of  the  seminary  began  in 
1853,  with  the  Davenport  professorship,  which  Avas  in  the 
sum  of  $20,000,  and  was  followed  in  1855  by  the  Roosevelt 
and  the  Washburn  professorships  each  in  the  sum  of  $25,000. 

Scholarship  endowments  began  in  1860,  and  have  in- 
creased in  number  to  about  thirty.  Library,  Elocution,  Lec- 
tureship and  Fellowship  with  other  professorship  endowments 
have  since  been  established,  until  the  number  of  individuals 
who  have  thus  expressed  their  interest  and  confidence  in  the 
institution,  is  about  sixty.  It  is  remarkable  that  in  no  single 
instance,  have  the  founders  accompanied  their  gifts  with  the 
faintest  allusion  to  the  General  Assembly. 

The  present  financial  condition  and  credit  of  the  semi- 
mary  is  in  striking  contrast  with  the  straitened  circum- 
stances of  its  early  history.  At  a  meeting  of  the  board  held 
May  6,  1840,  the  following  resolution  was  adopted:  "i?e- 
solced,  That  in  the  judgment  of  the  board  a  sufficient  sum 
has  been  raised  by  subscription  to  justify  the  board    in    con- 


212  THE    UXIOX   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

tiniiino;  the  seminary  in  operation  for  the  ensuino;  year," 
Twelve  years  later,  in  Angust,  1852,  a  Mr.  Barclay  was  found 
willing  to  loan  $10,000  on  the  seminary  property  for  three 
years,  at  seven  per  cent,  per  annum,  payable  semi-annually, 
"  prompt  payment  of  principal  and  interest  to  be  guaranteed 
by  Caleb  O.  Halsted,  Richard  T.  Haines,  Anson  G.  Phelps, 
Charles  Butler  and  David  Hoadley  jointly  and  severally," 
which  terms  were  accepted. 

E.    M.    KiNGSLEY, 

Treasurer  and  Recorder. 
New  York,  April,  1898. 

Here  is  the  noble  letter  of  Mr.  Terry  to  the  New 
York  Tribune  : 

Sir  : — Since  the  death  of  Governor  E.  D.  Morgan  I  have 
occasionally  seen  intimations  of  what  he  would  or  would  not 
have  done  if  he  could  have  foreseen  the  state  of  affairs  now 
existing  in  the  Presbyterian  Church.  It  is  a  very  easy 
matter  to  speculate  upon  what  can  neither  be  proved  nor 
disproved,  but  some  assertions  have  been  made  with  a 
directness  and  assurance  that  are  not  warranted  by  any 
known  facts,  specially  those  with  reference  to  Governor 
Morgan's  benefactions  to  the  Union  Theological  Seminary. 

Governor  Morgan  Avas  educated  in  his  early  life  in  a 
Congregational  church,  his  father  for  a  long  series  of  years 
filling  the  office  of  deacon  in  the  church  at  Windsor,  Con- 
necticut. When  he  removed  to  Hartford  there  were  four 
prominent  Congregational  churches  in  that  city,  three  of 
which  were  of  a  pronounced  conservative  type ;  the  other 
one  was  under  the  pastorate  of  Dr.  Horace  Bushncll,  and  it 
was  to  this  church  that  he  gave  his  allegiance,  and  it  was 
here  that  I  first  knew  of  him  in  the  years  1835  and  1836. 
He  came  to  Brooklyn  to  reside  in  1837,  and,  finding  no 
Congregational  church  there  he  connected  himself  with  the 
New  School  Presbyterian  church  under  the  pastorate  of 
Rev.  Dr.  Samuel  H.  Cox.      If  Dr.  Storrs'  church    had   been 


ANOTHER   DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  213 

established  in  Brooklyn  when  he  came  there  to  reside,  I 
am  sure  that  you  would  never  have  heard  of  Governor 
Morgan  as  a  Presbyterian  in  that  city.  He,  like  many 
others,  became  a  Presbyterian  by  force  of  circumstances,  not 
by  choice.  He  removed  to  New  York  about  1844,  and 
continued  his  connection  with  the  Presbyterian  Church. 
Governor  Morgan  was,  during  his  long  and  useful  life,  en- 
gaged in  mercantile  business  and  affairs  of  State,  and  I  do 
not  think  he  ever  considered  himself  a  theologian.  He 
certainly  was  not  what  may  be  designated  as  a  crank  either 
in  matters  of  business,  politics  or  religion.  He  was  a  man 
of  liberal  tendencies,  and  I  can  hardly  conceive  of  anyone 
supposing  that  he  would  approve  of  the  "rule  or  ruin" 
policy  advocated  by  those  who  are  at  present  in  power  in 
the  Presbyterian  Church. 

I  became  connected  with  Governor  Morgan  in  1841,  and 
until  1883,  the  period  of  his  death,  I  was  in  almost  daily 
intercourse  with  him  when  he  was  not  absent  from  the  city. 
When  he  stated  to  me  that  he  was  making  his  will  and  that 
he  found  it  a  difficult  matter  to  determine  exactly  what  to 
do,  I  suggested  that  we  all  owed  something  to  New  York, 
to  which  he  assented,  and  I  found  upon  reading  his  will 
that  he  had  adopted  some  suggestions  which  I  then  made. 
He  told  me  of  some  of  his  intentions  with  regard  to  Union 
Seminary,  and  I  inferred  that  his  benefactions  were  made 
there  because  it  was  an  institution  for  the  education  of  young 
men  for  the  ministry  and  of  liberal  tendencies,  and  in  the 
city  of  New  York,  and,  further,  that  it  affijrded  him  much 
gratification  to  make  the  bequest,  owing  to  his  great  regard 
and  affection  for  Dr.  Roswell  D.  Hitchcock. 

To  undertake  to  belittle  his  character  by  assuming  that  he 
would  regret  having  given  his  money  to  the  Union  Theo- 
logical Seminary  upon  the  ground  that  it  is  not  conducted 
absolutely  upon  the  lines  that  would  be  approved  by  the 
majority  at  present  in  control  of  the  General  Assembly  is  to 
do  his  memory  a  great  injustice. 

John  T.  Terry. 
New  York,  May  23,  1895. 


214  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

If  Mr.  McDougall  is  not  satisfied  with  these  papers, 
or  detects  flaws  in  them,  he  can,  no  douht,  obtain 
further  light  by  applying  to  the  gentlemen  themselves. 
They  are  two  of  the  best  and  most  highly  esteemed  cit- 
izens of  New  York,  and  are  both,  I  believe,  ruling 
elders  in  good  and  regular  standing.  Their  only  weak 
point,  so  far  as  T  know,  is  that  they  get  their  orthodoxy 
from  the  Bible  and  not  from  a  General  Assembly. 

(c)  High- Church  theory  about  the  powers  of  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly.  Reunion  Presbyterianism .  Dr.  Beatty 
and  Dr.  Adams. 

There  are  two  very  different  theories  of  American 
Presbyterianism  ;  and  they  have,  every  now  and  then, 
come  into  sharp  conflict  with  each  other.  One  of  them 
may  be  called  a  rigid  High-Church  theory  ;  while  the 
other,  varying  in  name  or  form,  shuns  domineering 
ways  and  has  ever  shown  a  special  affinity  for  evangel- 
ical tolerance,  moderation  and  liberty.  Both  have 
contended  for  orthodoxy  and  the  faith  once  delivered 
to  the  saints  ;  but  not  exactly  in  the  same  spirit  or  by 
the  same  methods.  It  seems  to  me  that  in  the  papers 
of  Dr.  Roberts,  Dr.  McKibbin  and  Thomas  McDougall 
we  have  marked  specimens  of  the  High-Church  type. 
The  tone  of  these  papers  is  a  tone  of  rigid  ecclesiastical 
authority  and  rule,  not  to  say  menace,  whenever  the 
power  of  the  General  Assembly  is  referred  to.  I  have 
had   occasion   of  bite   to  familiarize  myself  somewhat 


ANOrHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  215 

with  the  tone  which  characterized  the  leaders  and 
friends  of  reunion  in  1869-70  ;  and  it  struck  me  as  an 
almost  ideal  expression  of  the  true  spirit  of  American 
Presbyterianism.  The  papers  of  Dr.  Roberts  and  Dr. 
McKibbin  and  Thomas  McDougall  make  a  different 
impression.  They  uphold  a  theory  of  Assembly  power 
and  rule  which  I  cannot  but  regard  as  in  conflict  with 
vital  principles  of  American  Presbyterianism.  The 
whole  New  School  branch  of  the  Church  always  set  its 
face,  like  a  flint,  against  such  a  theory  ;  and  so  did 
many  of  the  weightiest  men  in  the  Old  School  branch. 
As  for  Union  Seminary,  it  was  born  and  nurtured,  and 
has  always  moved  and  had  its  being,  in  another  eccle- 
siastical atmosphere.  Its  difference  of  tone  and  theory 
from  Dr.  Roberts'  and  Mr.  McDougall's  reactionary 
Presbyterianism  is  like  the  difference  in  theory  and 
spirit  between  American  liberty  and  the  autocratic 
despotism  of  the  Russian  Czar. 

Let  me  show  just  what  I  mean  by  the  rigid  "  High- 
Church  theory  of  the  powers  of  the  General  Assembly." 
I  will  do  so  by  giving  an  extract  bearing  on  the  sub- 
ject, from  the  life  of  George  Junkin,  D.  D.,  LL.D., 
written  by  his  brother,  the  Rev.  Dr.  David  X.  Junkin. 
No  one  can  read  this  life  of  that  champion  of  Old 
School  orthodoxy  without  learning  to  esteem  him  as  an 
eminently  good  man  ;  nor  did  his  renowned  son-in-law, 
Stonewall  Jackson,  excel  him  in  strong  qualities  of 
character.  Here  is  his  opinion  on  the  subject  in  ques- 
tion : 


216  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

He  deplored  the  assumption  by  the  General  Assembly  of 
powers  not  o;ranted  to  that  body  in  the  constitution,  powers 
which  he  verily  believed  were  dangerous  to  the  liberties  of 
God's  people,  and  destructive  of  the  beautiful  and  well-balan- 
ced Presbyterianism  which  our  fathers  had  deduced  from  the 
Bible.  He  felt  that  the  assumption  by  the  General  Assem- 
])ly  of  the  powers  of  a  court  of  original  jurisdiction  in  cases 
of  discipline  was  unconstitutional,  and  tended  to  the  utter 
destruction  of  our  system  of  appeals  from  a  lower  to  a 
higher  court.  He  abhorred  the  doctrine  of  the  "omnipo- 
tence of  the  General  Assembly,"  and  in  a  series  of  vigorous 
articles  published  in  the  Northicestem  Presbyterian,  a  paper 
ably  edited  at  Chicago,  by"  the  Rev.  E.  Erskine,  D.  D.,  and 
the  Rev.  D.  McKinney,  D.D.,  he  showed  the  unconstitution- 
ality and  the  dangerous  tendencies  of  this  dogma,  and 
besought  his  brethren  to  beware  lest  in  their  excited  zeal 
for  a  good  end  they  should  adopt  doctrines  and  measures 
which  were  revolutionary  and  destructive.  ...  It 
is  believed  that  his  views  of  this  matter  are  the  views 
which  prevail  with  the  great  mass  of  Presbyterians,  es- 
pecially since  the  reunion.  The  Old  School  branch  before 
the  reunion  had  substantially  receded  from  and  repudiated 
positions  taken  in  1865  and  1866,  and  the  New  School 
branch  stand  committed  by  all  their  deliverances  in  all 
their  separate  history  against  the  High-Church  doctrine 
of  the  "omnipotence  of  the  General  Assembly,"  th'e  right 
of  the  Assembly  to  assume  original  jurisdiction  in  cases  of 
discipline,  and  the  possession  by  the  highest  court  of 
all  the  powers  of  the  inferior  judiciaries.  This  M'ould  be 
a  consolidation  of  power  more  puissant  than  the  Pope- 
dom, and  more  dangerous  to  the  liberties  of  God's  people. 
Against  it  Dr.  Junkin  left  his  latest,  almost  his  dying 
testimony,    for    in    some    of    the    last    letters    traced  by    his 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  2\7 

pen    he    charges    liis    brother   to  resist    it  everywhere  and    at 
all    times.  * 


But  far  better  to  me  than  the  best  written  statement 
on  the  subject  were  two  types  of  American  Presbyte- 
rianism  exemplified  in  the  men  who,  as  chairmen  of 
the  Okl  and  New  School  Committee  on  Reunion,  led 
that  great  movement  with  so  much  skill  and  such 
far-sighted  wisdom.  I  refer  to  Charles  C.  Beatty  and 
William  Adams. 

In  preparing  this  volume  I  have  had  the  privilege 
of  reading  many  of  the  letters  which  passed  between 
Dr.  Adams  and  Dr.  Beatty  while  they  were  acting  as 
chairmen  of  the  Joint  Committee  on  Beunion.  I  say 
the  privilege, — for  while  the  letters  relate  largely  to 
points  and  difficulties  no  longer  of  any  special  interest, 
the  spirit  pervading  them  all  is  so  admirable,  so 
full  of  zeal  for  the  unity  and  peace  of  the  Church, 
so  full,  too,  of  mutual  confidence  and  love,  that  their 
perusal  has  been  to  me  a  real  edification.  It  was  this 
spirit  which  contributed  more  than  aught  else  to  bring 
about  reunion.  Without  this  spirit  that  happy  con- 
summation would  have  been  impossible. 


*  The  position  of  the  New  School  Chui-ch  is  clearly  and  forcibly  set  forth 
by  the  committee  appointed  by  its  General  Assembly  in  1855,  "to  report  to 
the  next  Assembly  on  the  constitutional  power  of  the  Assembly  over  the  sub- 
ject of  slave-holding  in  our  Churches."  The  committee  consisted  of  Albert 
Barnes,  Asa  D.  Smith,  afterwards  president  of  Dartmouth  College,  Hon.  Wil- 
liam Jessup,  Augustus  P.  Hascall  and  A.  H.  H.  Boyd,  of  Virginia.  The 
report  will  be  found  in  the  New  School  Minutes  of  1856,  pp.  197-201. 


218  THE   UNIOX   THEOLOGICAL   SEMLXARY. 

Charles  C.  Beatty  and  William  Adams  were  men 
oftlie  highest  qualities  of  personal  character,  greatly  be- 
loved and  admired  by  all  who  knew  them.  Dr.  Beatty, 
who  was  seven  years  older  than  Dr.  Adams,  repre- 
sented the  Old  School  in  its  most  solid  and  attractive 
characteristics.  Son  of  an  officer  of  the  Revolutionary 
army,  grandson  of  an  eminent  Presbyterian  minister, 
an  alumnus  of  both  the  college  and  seminary  at  Prince- 
ton, he  had  passed  his  life  in  the  West,  chiefly  in  Ohio, 
w^here  he  was  universally  honored  and  revered,  espec- 
ially as  a  devoted  and  munificent  friend  of  education. 
In  face  of  the  strongest  opj)osition  he  led  the  Old 
School  in  the  reunion  movement  with  consummate  good 
sense  and  judgment  as  also  with  the  very  meekness  of 
wisdom.  Probably  no  other  man  was  so  well  fitted  to 
serve  as  chairman  of  the  Joint  Committee  on  the  jiart 
of  the  Old  School.  Dr.  Adams  was  not  less  signally 
fitted  to  serve  the  New  School  in  the  same  capacity. 
He  was  the  son  of  one  of  the  foremost  American  educa- 
tors of  the  early  half  of  the  century.  On  the  mother's 
side  he  traced  his  lineage  back  to  Governor  Bradford 
of  the  Mayflower.  A  graduate  of  Yale  College  and  of 
Andover  Theological  Seminary,  and  first  settled  as  pas- 
tor over  a  Congregational  cliurch  near  Boston,  he  was 
seasoned,  through  and  through,  with  Puritan  and  New 
England  ideas  —  those  vitalizing  ideas  of  religion, 
freedom  and  social  progress  which  had  so  largely  ruled 
the  spirit  and  shaped  the  growth  and  policy  of  the  New 
School   churches.     At  the  same  time  his  soundness  in 


ANOTHER   DECADE   OE  ITS  HISTOR)'.  219 

the  faith  was  unquestioned,  and  he  wielded  an  influence 
not  in  the  New  School  branch  alone,  but  in  the  other 
branch  and  in  the  whole  Christian  community,  which 
in  its  peculiar  elements  of  strength  and  persuasiveness 
was  hardly  equalled  by  that  of  any  other  minister  in 
the  Presbyterian  Church.  When  the  reunion  was  at 
length  accomplished,  everybody  felt  that  he  had  been 
one  of  its  chief  instruments.  Dr.  Shaw,  of  Rochester, 
a  man  whose  own  praise  was  in  all  the  land,  wrote  to 
him  :  "  The  Church  owes  you  a  debt  so  large  that  no 
one  but  God  is  rich  enough  to  pay  it." 

These  two  eminent  servants  of  the  Lord  deserve  to 
be  held  in  lasting  remembrance  as  rare  examples  at 
once  of  Christian  character  and  of  the  far-reaching- 
power  of  genuine  Christian  influence.  Their  relations 
to  each  other  while  chairmen  of  the  Joint  Committee 
were  very  beautiful,  as  may  be  seen  by  the  following- 
extract  from  a  letter  of  Dr.  Beatty  to  Mr.  John 
Crosby  Brown,  written  after  Dr.  Adams'  death  : 

My  previous  'personal  knowledge  of  Dr.  Adams  had  been 
very  shght ;  but  upon  our  first  interview  he  met  me  with 
such  cordiality,  as  well  as  courtesy,  and  in  all  our  conferences 
showed  so  kind,  frank  and  confiding  a  manner  as  at  once  won 
my  heart  to  love  as  well  as  respect  him ;  and  this  feeling  on 
my  part  was  retained  to  the  close  of  his  life.  I  think  it  was 
reciprocated.  We  did  not  so  much  correspond  as  we  had 
personal  intercourse  at  his  home  in  New  York.  The  two 
reports  to  the  General  Assembly  were,  at  my  request,  prin- 
cipally prepared  by  him.     Some  parts,  chiefly  the   historical, 


220  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

were  written  out  by  me,  but  the  general  form  and  style  was 
liis  ;  all  %vas  submitted  to  the  members,  and  sometimes  mod- 
ifications were  made  at  their  suggestion,  and  finally  I  had 
the  review  ;  but  in  anything  material  the  reports  were  from 
the  pen  of  Dr.  Adams. 

We  talked  over  the  subject  very  freely  and  unreservedly, 
and  prayed  over  it  earnestly,  for  we  both  felt  that  there  was 
a  great  responsibility  resting  upon  us  to  God  and  the  Church. 
He  knew  what  great  difficulties  and  conflicts  of  mind  I  had 
from  the  fact  that  my  best  friends  were  in  opposition  to  my 
views ;  and  I  made  the  request  of  him  that  after  my  death 
he  would  state  these  things  in  some  article  in  Tlie  Evangelist, 
which  he  promised  to  do — for  we  then  had  little  thought  that 
I  could  survive  him.  On  one  occasion,  after  the  reunion, 
both  of  us  expressed  our  conviction  that  the  position  we  had 
hckl  had  been  a  means  of  grace  to  us,  in  drawing  us  nearer 
to  God,  and  enabling  us  to  feel  more  fully  our  entire  de- 
pendence on  Him  for  light  and  aid  in  our  work.  I  consider 
it  a  great  privilege  and  blessing  to  me  to  have  been  thus 
associated  with  him  in  this  matter. 

I  shall  not  forget  his  kind  manner  towaixls  me  at  the 
close  of  the  Council  at  Edinburgh.  He  said  to  me,  "  I  have 
been  requested  to  make  the  closing  address  at  the  Council, 
and  I  have  asked  that  you  officiate  in  the  religious  exercises." 
He  introduced  me  to  the  Assembly  as  his  dear  friend,  mak- 
ing some  beautiful  remarks  about  my  age  and  sacrifice  in 
coming  in  despite  of  my  blindness. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  two  chairmen  of  the  Joint  Com- 
mittee and  of  the  correspondence  between  them.  Among 
the  other  members  of  the  committee  on  both  sides  were 
ministers  and  elders  of  wide  influence,  who  also  ren- 


ANOTHER   DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  221 

dered  invaluable  service  to  the  cause  of  reunion.  And 
they  did  it  because  they,  too,  like  Charles  C.  Beatty 
and  William  Adams,  were  such  faithful  patterns  of  the 
American  Presbyterianism  which  has  its  root  and  life 
in  the  Gospel  of  Christ. 


222  THE   UNION  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 


CHAPTEK  IV. 

REASONS    IX     FAVOR     OF     ANNULLING     THE     AGREEMENT 

OF     1870. THE    GENERAL      ASSEMBLY      REQUESTED 

BY  THE  BOARD  OF  DIRECTORS  OF  UNION  SEMI- 
NARY TO  CONCUR  WITH  THEM  IN  THIS  SOLUTION 
OF    THE    PROBLEM. 

The  action  at  Detroit  left  the  friends  of  Union  Semi- 
nary only  the  slightest  hope  of  a  peaceful  settlement 
of  the  veto  question  except  by  unconditional  submission 
to  the  claims  of  the  Assembly.  And  few  of  them 
cherished  even  this  slight  hope  after  the  adjourned 
meeting  of  the  Board  and  the  Assembly's  Committee  of 
Conference,  January  20-22, 1892.  Their  chief  concern 
was  now  to  sever  the  tie  that  for  twenty  years  had 
bound  the  institution  to  the  General  Assembly,  with 
the  least  possible  disturbance  of  the  peace  of  the  Pres- 
byterian Church.  At  the  special  request  of  my  old 
and  revered  friend,  Charles  Butler,  the  president 
and  only  surviving  founder  of  the  seminary,  I  prepared 
a  paper  on  the  subject,  in  which  was  set  forth  the 
conclusion  my  own  mind  had  reached  with  regard  to 
the  relations  of  the  seminary  to  the  General  Assembly, 
as  also  the  reasons  leading  to  such  conclusion.  The 
paper,  entitled  The  Problem  of  the  Veto  Poaver, 
AND  How  TO  Solve  It,  was  j^ublislied  in  March, 
1892,  on   my   own   responsibility,  but  with  the  appi-o- 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  223 

val  of  Mr.  Butler  and  other  friends  of  Union  Sem- 
inary. My  conclusion  and  reasons  coincided  in  all 
essential  points  with  their  own.  I  venture,  therefore, 
to  embody  a  part  of  the  paper  in  this  historical  record 
substantially  as  it  was  written  early  in  1892. 

THE  PKOBLEM  TO  BE  SOLVED  AXi)  THE  BEST  WAY  TO 

SOLVE  IT. 

I  propose  to  give  some  reasons  why  the  agreement 
of  1870  between  Union  Seminary  and  the  General 
Assembly  should  be  annulled.  I  shall  state  these  rea- 
sons frankly  as  they  present  themselves  to  my  own 
mind,  fully  conscious  of  the  grave  issue  involved,  and 
sincerely  desirous  to  avoid  a  single  word  that  could 
justly  be  charged  with  unfairness  or  prejudice.  After 
long  reflection  I  have  slowly  reached  the  conviction 
that,  in  the  interest  of  all  the  parties  concerned,  the 
best  and  only  safe  way  out  of  the  present  trouble  is  to 
annul  the  agreement  of  1870.  Several  distinct  lines 
of  thought  have  led  me  to  this  conclusion.  And  the 
first  line  of  thought  relates  to  the  legal  bearing  of  that 
agreement. 

{a)  The  agreement  of  1870,  conceding  to  the  General 
Assembly  a  veto  on  the  election  of  professors  in  Union 
Seminary,  should  be  annulled  because  inconsistent  with 
the  chartered,  obligations  of  the  Board  of  Directors. 

Great  stress  was  laid  upon  the  point  of  legality  by 
the  Joint  Committee  on  Reunion,  by  the  first  united 
Assembly  at  Philadelphia  in  1870,  and  by  most,  if  not 
all,  of  the  theological  seminaries  themselves.     In  ex- 


224  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

plaining  the  ninth  article  of  their  report  of  1868  the 
chairman  of  the  Joint  Committee  said  that  a  "  recom- 
mendation^'' looking  to  some  uniformity  of  ecclesiastical 
supervision,  was  all  which  the  committee  felt  to  be 
within  their  province  or  that  of  the  Assembly,  excej^t 
that  those  seminaries,  now  belonging  to  either  branch 
of  the  Church,  "  should  have  every  guarantee  and  j^ro- 
tection  for  their  chartered  rights  which  they  might 
desire." 

The  Standing  Committee  on  Theological  Seminaries 
at  Philadelphia,  in  1870,  said  in  their  report,  which 
was  unanimously  adopted  by  the  Assembly  : 

Your  committee  would  recommend  no  change,  and  no  at- 
tempt at  change,  in  this  direction,  save  such  as  may  safely 
and  wisely  be  effected  under  existing  charters.  For  example, 
the  directors  of  the  seminary  at  Princeton  have  memorialized 
this  Assembly,  with  the  request  that  the  Assembly  would  so 
far  change  its  "  plan  "  of  control  over  the  institution  as  to 
give  the  Board  of  Directors  enlarged  rights  in  several  spec- 
ified particulars,  subject  to  the  veto  of  the  General  Assem- 
bly. Your  committee  are  unanimously  of  the  opinion  that 
the  changes  asked  for  are  eminently  wise  and  proper.  If  it 
were  within  the  power  of  the  General  Assembly  to  remit 
the  entire  administration  of  this  venerable  institution  to  its 
Board  of  Directors,  without  any  of  the  restrictions  they 
have  mentioned  as  to  the  supply  of  their  own  vacancies, 
they  would  cordially  recommend  it.  But,  inasmuch  as  the 
endowments  of  this  seminary  are  held  on  the  condition  that 
it  should  be  the  property  and  under  tlie  control  of  the 
General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United 
States,  that  trust  cannot  he  vacated  nor  transferred  to  any 
other  body. 


ANOTHER   DECADE    OF  ITS  HISTORY.  225 

In  1871  the  Board  of  Directors  of  Danville  Seminary 
reported  to  the  General  Assembly  that  they  had  ap- 
pointed a  committee  to  investigate  the  whole  subject  of 
entering  into  an  arrangement  with  the  Assembly  and 
to  report  to  the  directors,  whether  "  they  can  legally 
adopt  the  plan  of  the  Assembly."  In  the  same  year 
the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  Northwestern  Theological 
Seminary  report :  "In  regard  to  the  relation  of  the 
seminary  to  the  General  Assembly,  the  board,  finding 
that  there  are  legal  points  involved  in  this  question 
which  require  careful  investigation,  referred  the  whole 
matter  to  a  committee  with  instructions  to  report  to  the 
directors  at  their  next  annual  meeting  in  April, 
1872."  Similar  difficulties  arose  in  the  case  of 
Lane  and  Auburn  Seminaries.  It  is  plain,  then, 
that  the  question  of  legality  was  considered  of  vital 
importance  in  reference  to  adopting  the  Assembly 
plan. 

This  brings  us  back  to  the  case  of  Union.  And 
here  it  becomes  me  to  speak  with  much  diffidence,  see- 
ing I  am  no  lawyer.  But  the  interpretation  of  a  sim- 
ple charter,  like  the  Act  of  Incorporation  of  Union 
Seminary,  is,  in  part  at  least,  a  function  of  common 
sense  as  well  as  of  legal  skill  and  learning.  Every 
director  is  presumed  to  understand  it.  What  is  the 
charter  of  Union  Seminary  ?  So  far  as  concerns  the 
present  discussion  it  is  compressed  into  a  single  section, 
which  is  as  follows  : 

The  government  of  die  seminary  shall  at  all  times  be 
vested  in  a  Board  of  Directors,  which  shall  consist  of  not 
less  than  twenty-eight  members ;  one-half  of  Avhom  shall  be 
clergymen  and  the  other  half  laymen. 


226  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

Voila  tout  !  One  word  expresses  it  all,  but  that  word, 
in  the  domain  of  law  and  authority,  is  one  of  the  most 
comprehensive,  as  well  as  of  the  most  potential,  in  the 
English  language.  It  means  sovereign  power.  "  The 
government  shall  be  upon  His  shoulders."  Govern- 
ment has  all  things  under  its  feet.  The  government 
of  the  United  States  bears  sway  over  the  President  and 
his  Cabinet ;  over  Congress  ;  over  the  Judiciary ;  over 
the  army  and  navy  ;  over  all  the  people ;  over  the 
whole  land.  In  saying,  then,  that  "  the  government 
of  the  seminary  shall  at  all  times  be  vested  in  a  Board 
of  Directors,"  the  people  of  the  State  of  New  York, 
represented  in  Senate  and  Assembly,  enacted  that  the 
Board  of  Directors  should  themselves,  individually  and 
as  a  body,  exercise  and  fulfil  this  trust. 

How  could  they  delegate  such  a  trust  to  several  hun- 
dred men  assembled  at  Detroit,  or  at  Portland,  or  at 
any  other  place — men  coming  together  for  ten  or  twelve 
days  and  then  scattering  far  and  wide  over  the  land  ? 
And  how  could  such  a  fugitive,  unincorporate  collec- 
tion of  men  carry  on  the  *'  government"  or  execute  the 
trust,  "  at  all  times  vested  in  a  Board  of  Directors  "  ? 
How  can  this  Board  of  Directors  ''  appoint  all  profes- 
sors " — and  yet  its  appointment  of  every  professor  be 
so  imperfect  that  a  majority  vote  of  the  General  As- 
sembly can  utterly  nullify  it  ?  No  act  of"  the  govern- 
ment of  the  seminary  "  is  so  high,  or  so  vital  and  char- 
acteristic, as  the  appointment  of  its  jDrofessors ;  and  to 
let  a  General  Assembly  or  any  other  body  step  in  at 
the  last  moment  and  forbid  this  act,  deliberately  per- 
formed by  the  Board  of  Directors,  in  whom  it  is  "  at 
all  times  vested,"  does  seem  to  me  to  involve  a  distinct 
violation  of  chartered  rights  and  duties. 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OE  ITS  H [STORY.  227 

Such  was  the  opinion  of  the  eminent  legal  counsel, 
Mr.  Stanley  Matthews,  consulted  by  Lane  Seminary  in 
1871.  Mr.  Matthews,  afterwards  a  Justice  of  the 
United  States  Supreme  Court,  stated  clearly  and  pos- 
itively that  "  the  Board  of  Trustees,  a  corporate  body, 
could  not  legally  delegate  any  of  its  powers  to  the 
General  Assembly  or  to  any  other  body."  Two  years 
later  the  legal  counsel  of  Auburn  Seminary  gave  a 
similar  opinion.  Both  seminaries  followed  this  opinion 
and  entered  into  their  several  arrangements  with  the 
General  Assembly  in  pursuance  of  it.  They  guarded 
against  the  violation  of  their  chartered  obligations,  as 
they  believed,  by  a  special  provision  or  by-law.  Here 
it  is  in  the  case  of  Lane  : 

Every  election  of  a  jirofessor  in  this  institution  shall  be 
reported  to  the  next  General  Assembly,  and  if  the  said  As- 
sembly shall  by  vote  express  its  disapprobation  of  the  elec- 
tion, the  professorship  in  question  shall  ipso  jado  be  vacant 
from  and  after  such  veto  of  the  General  Assembly  :  it  being 
understood  that  in  such  cases  it  is  not  the  pleasure  of  this 
board  that  such  2^1'ofcssor  shall  continue  in  office. —  [New  Di- 
gest, p.  389.] 

The  action  of  Auburn  was  to  the  same  effect.  The 
committee  appointed  to  consider  the  subject  said  in 
their  report : 

They  have  carefully  examined  said  charter  and  sought 
legal  counsel  on  the  subject.  They  find  that  the  Board  of 
Commissioners  is  invested  with  the  sole  and  ultimate  author- 
ity to  appoint  its  professors,  and  they  cannot  legally  delegate 
this  power  to  any  other  body. 


228  ^^^    UNION    l^HEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

Thereupon  the  board  adopted  the  following  by-law>^ : 

That  hereafter  the  appointments  of  professors  in  this 
seminary  be  primarily  made  conditional  upon  the  approval 
of  the  General  Assembly,  and  that  such  appointments  be  com- 
plete and  authoritative  only  upon  securing  such  approval.  ^ 

No  such  2^rovision  or  by-law  w^as  ever  adopted  by 
Union.  It  is  very  plain,  therefore,  that  if  Lane  and 
Auburn  were  right,  Union  Seminary  was  wrong.  In 
delegating  the  ultimate  decision  in  the  election  of  its 
professors  to  the  General  Assembly  it  undertook  to  do 
what  exceeded  its  chartered  j)Ower. 

The  question  may  here  be  asked,  wdiy  this  legal 
point  was  not  considered  by  Union  Seminary  before 
offering  to  the  General  Assembly  a  veto  on  the  election 
of  its  professors  ?  And  why  it  was  not  considered,  also, 
by  the  General  Assembly  before  accejDting  that  offer  ? 
For  the  General  Assembly  was  as  much  bound  not  to 


*This  action  of  Auburn,  conditioning  its  appointment  of  a  professor 
upon  "  the  approval  of  the  General  Assembly  "  was  one  cause,  perhaps,  of 
the  solicitude  which  Dr.  Adams  expressed  about  this  time  and  subsecjuently 
concerning  the  veto  power.  The  following  letter  from  Mr.  Kingsley  will 
explain  what  I  mean  : 

My  Dear  Dr.  Prentiss:  In  May,  1874,  just  before  I  started  on  my 
journey  as  commissioner  to  General  Assembly,  Kev.  Dr.  William  Adams 
called  upon  me,  and,  with  an  earnestness  of  manner  which  I  could  not 
then  understand  or  explain,  charged  me  to  see  that  the  Assembly,  in  any 
action  touching  theological  seminaries,  should  not  attemiJt,  or  allow,  any 
control  over  Union  Seminary  beyond  the  one  point  of  ^'  disappromi"  of 
professorial  appointments.  He  appeared  to  me  alarmed  unreasonably,  and 
as  he  expressed  a  similar  anxiety  on  two  or  three  subsequent  occasions, 
the    matter    impressed  itself  distinctly  upon  my  memory. 

1  have  learned  more  recently  that  in  1S73  the  Assembly  at  Baltimore 
assumed  and  exercised  the  power  of  '^approval"  of  the  transfer  of  Dr. 
Schatt';  and  that  action  perhaps  accounts  for  the  extreme  concern  man- 
ifested by  Dr.  Adams.  Youi-s  truly, 

E.  M.  Kingsley. 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  229 

accept  the  offer  without  being  first  assured  of  its 
legality,  as  the  Board  of  Directors  was  bound  not  to 
make  the  offer  without  being  first  assured  that  the 
charter  of  the  institution  would  not  thereby  be  violated. 
The  question  may  be  answered  in  several  ways.  The 
necessity  of  being  aided  by  legal  counsel  was  distinctly 
recognized  by  the  Joint  Committee,  as  appears  in  the 
thirteenth  article  of  their  report  of  1867,  recommend- 
ing the  appointment  by  the  General  Assemblies  of  a 
committee  of  six  distinguished  lawyers  "  to  investigate 
all  questions  of  property  and  of  vested  rights,  as  they 
may  stand  related  to  the  matter  of  reunion."  Such  a 
legal  committee  was  designated  ;  but  owing  to  the  death 
of  Mr.  Daniel  Lord,  one  of  its  members,  and  the  ina- 
bility of  several  other  members  to  act,  the  Joint  Com- 
mittee on  Reunion  informed  the  General  Assemblies 
of  1868  that  they  had  as  yet  received  from  this  com- 
mittee no  report  in  regard  to  "  questions  of  property 
and  vested  rights."  After  1868,  the  whole  subject  of 
the  theological  seminaries  retired  into  the  background, 
the  question  of  a  Presbytery's  right  to  examine  minis- 
ters applying  for  admission  from  other  Presbyteries 
having  largely  taken  its  place. 

Another  answer  to  the  question  why  both  Union 
Seminary  and  the  General  Assembly  did  not  carefully 
investigate  all  the  legal  points  involved  before  entering 
into  the  agreement  of  1870,  is  the  haste  which  of  neces- 
sity marked  the  whole  matter.  It  was  all  comj)ressed 
into  two  or  three  weeks.  Between  the  meeting  of  the 
Board  of  Directors  of  Union  Seminary  on  May  9th,  and 
that  held  on  May  16,  1870,  legal  counsel  was  sought 
with  regard  to  the  veto  which  had  been  proposed  on 
the  election  of  directors.     Less  than  three  weeks  later, 


230  '^HE   UNION  THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

in  the  report  of  the  Standing  Committee  on  Theological 
Seminaries  at  Philadelphia  occurs  the  following  signifi- 
cant passage : 

In  this  generous  offer  [viz.,  Union's  offer  of  a  veto  on 
the  election  of  its  professors]  looking  solely  to  the  peace  and 
harmony  of  the  Church,  the  memorialists  did  not  inchide  the 
same  veto  in  regard  to  the  election  of  their  own  directors, 
inasmuch  cm  these  directors  hold  the  jyroperty  of  the  seminary 
IN  TRUST. —  [Minutes  of  1870,  p.  63.] 

I  cannot  find  that  with  this  exception  any  distinct 
question  of  legality  was  raised  either  by  the  Union 
board  or  by  the  General  Assembly.  Both  seem  to 
have  taken  for  granted  that  what  they  were  doing  was 
all  right.  How  often  has  the  same  thing  been  true  of 
important  acts  of  Congress  and  of  State  Legislatures, 
afterward  declared  illegal,  or  unconstitutional,  by  the 
judgment  of  the  United  States  Supreme  Court ! 

{b)  The  agreement  of  1870,  conceding  to  the  General 
Assembly  a  veto  on  the  election  of  prof  essoins  in  Union 
Seminary,  should  be  annulled  because  inconsistent  with 
the  plan  and  constitution,  as  well  as  with  the  charter,  of 
the  institution. 

And  here  we  come  at  once  to  very  close  quarters  with 
the  ethical  side  of  the  problem  before  us.  It  is  a  ques- 
tion of  conscience  and  personal  duty,  and  not  merely 
nor  mainly  a  question  of  opinion,  or  of  ecclesiastical 
order.  Every  director  of  Union  Seminary  made  the 
following  declaration  in  the  presence  of  the  board  : 

Approving  of  the  plan  and  constitution  of  the  Union 
Theological  Seminary  in  the  city  of  New    York,  and    of  the 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  231 

Westminster  Confession  of  Faith,  and  of  the  Presbyterian 
Form  of  Church  Government,  I  do  solemnly  promise  to  main- 
tain the  same,  so  long  as  I  shall  continue  to  be  a  member 
of  the  Board  of  Directors. 

What  is  the  meaning  of  this  declaration  ?  It  means 
that  every  director  binds  himself  to  maintain  the  plan 
and  constitution  of  Union  Seminary  in  the  same  sense 
that  he  binds  himself  to  maintain  the  Westminster 
Confession  of  Faith  as  the  doctrinal  standard  of  the 
institution,  or  the  Presbyterian  Form  of  Church  Gov- 
ernment. When  no  longer  able  to  do  this  in  good 
conscience  he  virtually  pledges  himself  to  resign  his 
directorship. 

Now  what  is  the  "  plan  "  of  Union  Seminary,  which 
every  director  declared  his  apjDroval  of  and  solemnly 
promised  to  maintain  ?  One  of  its  most  distinctive  and 
vital  features  is  the  autonomy  and  self-governing  free- 
dom of  the  institution.  If  anything  enters  into  the 
essence  of  its  plan,  as  conceived  and  carried  out  by  its 
founders,  it  is  independence  of  ecclesiastical  control. 
This  plan  was  guaranteed  by  its  charter.  "  The  gov- 
ernment of  the  seminary  shall  at  all  times  be  vested  in 
a  Board  of  Directors."  Whether  a  good  or  a  bad  plan, 
such  was  the  actual  jAan  of  the  institution. 

Every  director  next  makes  a  solemn  promise  to 
maintain  the  constitution  of  the  seminary.  At  Detroit 
this  "  constitution  so-called "  was  held  up  before  the 
Assembly  as  a  very  small  affair, — a  mere  "  corpora- 
tion's constitution."  But  is  it  really  so  small  an  affair 
that  every  director  solemnly  promises  to  maintain  ? 
Let  us  consider  the  question  for  a  moment.  What 
makes    Union    Seminary    a  Presbyterian   institution  ? 


232  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

Certainly  not  the  charter.*  Its  charter  makes  Auburn 
a  distinctively  Presbyterian  seminary.  But  the  char- 
ter of  Union  would  serve  equally  well  for  an  Ej^iscopal, 
a  Methodist,  a  Eoman  Catholic,  or  a  Unitarian  institu- 
tion. What  declares  it  to  be  a  Presbyterian  seminary 
is  its  constitution.  And  so,  also,  with  its  orthodoxy. 
The  constitution,  j^repared  by  men  of  wisdom,  skill  and 
exi^erience,  as  well  as  piety,  sets  forth  the  design,  char- 
acter and  limits  of  its  corporate  powers.  The  first 
section  of  Article  I,  reads  : 

No  person  shall  be  eligible  to  the  office  of  director  unless 
he  be  a  minister  or  member  in  good  standing  of  some  evan- 
gelical Church  accepting  the  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith, 
as  adopted  by  the  Presbyterian  Churches  of  this  country. 

And  now  wherein  Avas  the  agreement  of  1870  incon- 
sistent with  the  constitution  of  Union  Seminary  ?  In 
this,  that  it  conceded  to  the  General  Assembly  the 
exercise  of  a  right  and  duty,  which  the  constitution,  as 
well  as  the  charter,  entrusted  to  the  Board  of  Directors 
alone.     The  third  section  of  Article  I,  reads  as  follows  : 

In  order  to  carry  out  the  powers  vested  in  them  by  the 
Act  of  Incorporation,  the  Board  of  Directors  shall  have  au- 
thority to  make  their  own  by-laws ;  hold,  manage,  and  dis- 
burse the  funds  of  the  seminary  ;  appoint  all  officers,  profcsf<ors, 
and  teaefiers ;  fix  their  salaries;  determine  tfieir  duties;  make 
laws  for  the  government  of  the  institution  ;  and,  in   general, 

*  In  the  report  on  tlieological  seminaries  at  Philadclpliia  in  1S70,  it  is 
said  that  Lane  and  Union '"  by  their  cliarfov,  most  cautiously  prepared,  are 
made  Presbyterian  institutions."  (New  Dis^cst,  p.  3S4.)  This  is  a  mistake  in 
the  case  of  I'nion.      Itscliarter  makes  no  allusion  to  I'resbvterianisin. 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  233 

to  adopt  all  such  measures,  not  inconsistent  with  the  provisions 
of  said  act  and  of  this  constitution,  as  the  iuterests  of  the 
seminary  may  require. 

Here  is  section  first  of  Article  II : 

The  faculty  shall  consist  of  a  jn-esiclent  and  professors,  all 
of  whom  shall  be  ordained  ministers  of  the  Gospel,  and  all 
of  rchom  shall  he  appointed  Ijt/  the  Board  of  Directors. 

These  clauses  are  mandatory,  explicit,  and  leave  no 
place  for  any  rival  or  superior  authority.  If  the  Board 
of  Directors  can  lawfully  delegate  to  the  General 
Assembly  the  power  of  vetoing  the  appointment  of  a 
professor,  it  can  just  as  lawfully  delegate  to  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly  the  power  of  vetoing  the  appointment 
of  president,  directors,  treasurer,  and  all  other  officers 
of  the  institution.  Will  any  one  say  that  it  can  law- 
fully do  this  ?  Nothing  short  of  an  amendment  to  the 
constitution  of  the  seminary  could  have  empowered  the 
Board  of  Directors  in  1870  to  give  to  the  General 
Assembly  a  veto  upon  the  appointment  of  its  profes- 
sors. Even  this,  as  I  think,  would  have  been  insuffi- 
cient ;  for  the  charter  would  still  have  barred  the  way. 
Without  such  amendment  their  way  was  doubly  barred. 
And  this  necessity  of  a  change  of  the  constitution  in 
order  to  bring  the  seminary  under  ecclesiastical  super- 
vision w^as  distinctly  recognized  as  early  as  1868. 
The  ninth  article  of  the  plan  of  union  reported  by  the 
Joint  Committee  of  that  year,  rej)orted  again  in  1869 
and  adopted  by  both  Assemblies,  was  as  follows  : 

In  order  to  a  uniform  system  of  ecclesiastical  supervision 
those  theological  seminaries  that  are  now  under  Assembly 
control  may,  if  tlieir  Boards  of  Directors  so   elect,  be    trans- 


234  '^^E    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

ferred  to  the  Avatch  and  care  of  one  or  more  of  the  adjacent 
Synods  ;  and  the  other  seminaries  are  advised  to  introduce,  as 
far  as  may  be,  into  their  constitutions,  the  principle  of  Syn- 
odical  or  Assembly  supervision  ;  in  which  case  they  shall  be 
entitled  to  an  official  recognition  and  approbation  on  the 
part  of  the  General  Assembly. 

It  thus  appears  that,  according  to  the  deliberate  judg- 
ment of  the  Joint  Committee  on  Reunion  in  1868,  of 
the  Joint  Committee  of  Conference  in  1869,  and  of 
both  General  Assemblies  in  1869 — the  Assemblies 
that  adopted  and  carried  out  the  final  plan  of  union — 
the  only  way  by  which  Union  Seminary  could  place 
itself  under  Synodical  or  Assembly  supervision  was  to 
amend  the  constitution  of  the  seminary  by  introducing 
into  it  the  principle  of  ecclesiastical  supervision.  This, 
therefore,  is  what  they  all,  one  after  the  other  and  in 
perfect  concert,  "  advised "  Union  Seminary  to  do. 
But  Union  Seminary  did  not  see  fit  to  follow  this  ad- 
vice. It  never  introduced  into  its  constitution  "  the 
principle  of  Synodical  or  Assembly  supervision  ;  "  and 
this  not  having  been  done,  any  such  measure  as  the 
agreement  of  1870  w^as  and  is  "  inconsistent  with  the 
constitution  "  which  every  director  solemnly  promises 
to  maintain.  Why  the  "  recommendation  "  of  the  Joint 
Committees  and  of  the  two  Assemblies  was  not  acted 
upon  by  the  Union  board,  I  cannot  say.  I  was  a 
member  of  the  board  and  can  only  testify  that  the  sub- 
ject never  came  before  it.  Mr.  D.  Willis  James' 
opposition  to  conceding  to  the  General  Assembly  a 
veto  on  the  election  of  Union  directors  and  professors 
was  based,  not  specifically  upon  illegality  or  unconsti- 
tutionality, but  upon  its  un-wisdom  and  inherent  perils. 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  235 

And  here  let  me  add  that  when  Princeton  was  freed 
from  the  direct  control  of  the  General  Assembly  of  the 
united  Church,  the  "plan,"  or  constitution,  of  the  semi- 
nary was  at  the  same  time  amended  in  order  to  allow 
of  the  new  arrangemnnt.  The  Assembly  was  asked  by 
Princeton  "  so  to  alter  the  -plan  of  the  seminary  that 
the  directors  shall  hereafter  have  the  right  to  appoint 
and  to  remove  professors,  subject  to  the  veto  of  the 
General  Assembly."  And  the  Princeton  professors  in 
their  j^aper  say  that  if  their  suggestion  is  adopted  "  it 
would  require  the  following  changes  in  the  plan  " — 
that  is,  in  the  constitution.  (See  "  Plan  as  Amended 
by  the  Assembly  of  1870,"  New  Digest,  pp.  381-383.) 
Similar  constitutional  changes  were  made  by  the  West- 
ern, Northwestern  and  Danville  Seminaries. 

At  first  thought  it  does  seem  hard  to  believe  that 
such  men  as  the  directors  of  Union  Seminary  and  such 
a  body  as  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church  could  have  agreed  upon  a  method  of  settling 
the  question  of  the  theological  seminaries,  that  was 
inconsistent  both  Avith  the  charter  of  Union  Seminary 
and  Avith  its  constitution  framed  in  order  to  carry  out 
the  powers  vested  in  it  by  that  charter.  But  we  must 
consider  that  wise  men  sometimes  do  hasty  and  unwise 
things,  especially  when  acting  under  the  pressure  of 
circumstances  and  of  unselfish,  generous  sentiment. 
At  the  best  the  world  is  largely  ruled  by  mistaken 
views  ;  and  if  a  stronger,  more  far-seeing  power  than 
man's  was  not  at  the  helm,  the  mistakes  of  even  good 
and  right-minded  men  would  be  sure  to  wreck  human 
progress. 

In  this  very  matter  of  reunion  we  have  elsewhere  a 
striking  illustration  of  error  of  judgment  on   the  part 


^36  '^HE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

of  the  Joint  Committee  and  of  both  Assemblies.  Is  it 
not  natural  to  assume  that  in  dealing  with  so  important 
a  question  as  the  theological  seminaries  and  after  years 
of  discussion  any  scheme  of  settlement,  unanimously 
agreed  upon  by  both  parties,  would  have  been,  if  not 
actually  the  best — a  point  which  experience  alone  could 
determine — yet  at  least  feasible  and  not  illegal  ?  This, 
however,  was  confessedly  not  the  case  in  the  present 
instance.  The  plan  recommended  by  the  Joint  Com- 
mittee on  Keunion  and  adoj^ted  without  objection  by 
both  Assemblies  in  1868,  proposed  again  by  the  Joint 
Committee  of  Conference  in  1869,  and  once  more 
adoj^ted  without  objection  by  both  Assemblies,  was 
vitiated  by  a  fatal  error.  The  error  was  discovered 
only  at  the  last  moment.  "  As  the  endowments  of  this 
seminary  are  held  on  condition  that  it  should  be  sub- 
ject to  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church,  it  can  neither  be  rendered  independent  [like 
Union  and  Lane]  nor  j)laced  under  the  control  of  one 
or  more  Synods"  [like  Auburn] .  Such  was  the  lan- 
guage of  Dr.  Hodge  and  the  other  Princeton  professors, 
addressed  to  the  Board  of  Directors  of  that  seminary 
on  the  2oth  of  April,  1870.  And  yet,  as  I  have  shown, 
a  learned  committee  had  been  appointed  to  look  par- 
ticularly at  all  the  legal  points  involved,  while  the 
Avliole  subject  had  been  under  discussion  for  nearly 
three  years  ! 

In  view  of  this  simple  fact  I  submit  to  every  candid 
mind  whether  the  memorial  of  the  directors  of  Union 
Seminary,  adopted  on  May  16, 1870,  in  which  they  ask 
the  General  Assembly  to  remit  the  election  of  profes- 
sors in  the  seminaries  under  its  "  proprietorship  and 
control  "  to  their  several  Boards  of  Direction,  and  offer 


ANOTHER   DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  237 

in  that  case  to  concede  to  the  Assembly  a  veto  on  the 
election  of  Union's  professors,  was  after  all  so  very 
strange,  even  though  such  concession  would  be  in 
direct  conflict  with  the  "  plan  and  constitution  "  of  this 
seminary  ?  To  the  best  of  my  own  recollection  and  be- 
lief no  definite  question  of  either  chartered,  or  consti- 
tutional, right  was  raised  at  this  meeting.  The  discus- 
sion turned  upon  quite  other  points.  But  this  is  no 
more  an  impeachment  of  the  perfect  honesty,  intelli- 
gence and  right  feeling  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of 
Union  Seminary  or  of  the  General  Assembly  in  the 
action  of  1870,  than  it  is  an  impeachment  of  the  hon- 
esty, capacity  and  patriotic  sentiment  of  Congress  or  of 
any  legislative  body,  that  its  deliberate  action  is  later 
decided  by  the  Supreme  Court  to  have  been  wrong. 
How  much  easier  it  often  is  to  be  wise  afterward  than 
to  be  wise  at  the  critical,  eventful  moment.  In  offer- 
ing to  the  General  Assembly  a  veto  on  the  election  of 
its  professors  the  Board  of  Directors  of  Union  Semi- 
nary acted  under  a  misapprehension  of  its  corporate 
and  constitutional  powers ;  and  the  Assembly  erred  no 
less  in  accepting  the  offer.  But  for  all  that  the  whole 
transaction,  even  though  unwarranted,  was  inspired  by 
the  best  motives  and  did  honor  to  the  spirit  of  peace 
and  harmony  that  governed  alike  both  of  the  parties 
to  it. 

(c)  The  agreement  of  1870  should  be  annulled  be- 
cause the  veto  on  the  election  of  professor's  has  proved 
highly  injurious  to  the  vej'y  object  which  that  agreement 
aimed  to  secure. 

In  conceding  the  veto  power  the  directors  of  Union 
Seminary,  as  they   said,  were  "  looking  solely  to  the 


238  THE    I'NION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

peace  and  harmony  of  the  Church."  But  as  a  matter 
of  fact  nothing,  in  the  twenty  years  since  reunion,  has 
so  disturbed  the  peace  and  harmony  of  the  Church  as 
the  very  first  exercise  of  this  power.  And  there  is 
every  reason  to  believe  that  its  exercise  in  the  future 
would  be  fraught  with  similar  effects.  In  1870  the 
ecclesiastical  veto  was,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  an 
unknown  power.  It  was  in  the  nature  of  an  exj^eri- 
ment.  Nobody  could  tell  how  it  would  work.  We 
know  now  by  the  sure  test  of  trial  and  experience  just 
how  it  works.  As  I  have  said  before,  real  power, 
wherever  it  exists,  is  sure  to  make  itself  felt.  Its  turn 
always  comes,  sooner  or  later ;  nor  is  the  opportunity 
apt  to  be  neglected,  when  a  much  desired  object, 
whether  good  or  bad,  can  be  secured  by  its  exercise. 
What  is  called  the  spoils  system,  for  example — a  system 
which  has  done  so  much  to  poison  and  vulgarize  our 
political  life — is  largely  the  outgrowth  of  that  simple 
power  of  removal,  w^hich  the  Congress  of  1789  decided 
to  belong  exclusively  to  the  President.  Who  dreamed 
at  the  time  what  immense  harm  would  come  to 
the  nation  through  an  abuse  of  the  power?  Mr. 
Madison,  whose  influence  was  most  potent  in  this  deci- 
sion of  the  first  Congress,  declared  that  if  a  President 
should  exercise  his  power  of  removal  from  mere  per- 
sonal motives,  or  except  in  extreme  cases,  he  would 
deserve  to  be  imj^eached.  And  for  more  than  a  third 
of  a  century  Executive  patronage  was  used  solely  as  a 
public  trust  by  Washington  and  the  other  great  patriots 
who  then  ruled  the  country.  Even  after  1820,  when 
the  mischievous  Four  Years'  law  was  passed,  during  the 
second  term  of  JNIonroe  and  the  whole  term  of  John 
Quincy  Adams,   very  few  removals  were  made,  and 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  239 

those  in  every  case  for  cause.  Only  here  and  there  a 
far-seeing  statesman  surmised  what,  during  the  next 
third  of  a  century,  lay  wrapped  up  in  the  unlimited 
power  of  removal,  when,  instead  of  being  used  as  a 
public  trust,  it  was  going  to  be  so  largely  prostituted  to 
vulgar  greed  and  the  ruthless  animosities  of  selfish 
partisanship.  How  different  it  is  now  !  The  "  spoils 
system  "  has  come  to  be  regarded,  not  merely  by  a  few 
far-seeing  statesmen,  but  by  tens  of  thousands  of  our 
most  thoughtful  and  patriotic  citizens,  of  both  parties, 
as,  on  the  whole,  the  greatest  evil  that,  since  the  over- 
throw of  slavery,  has  beset  the  moral  life  of  the  coun- 
try. While  I  am  writing  this  pajoer  in  a  lovely  moun- 
tain valley  of  Vermont  one  of  the  most  distinguished 
of  her  sons  is  depicting  her  heroic  services  in  the  Rev- 
olutionary war  and  the  civic  virtues  which  rendered 
her  so  meet,  in  advance  of  all  others,  to  join  the  Old 
Thirteen  by  admission  to  the  Union,  It  is  a  romantic 
and  inspiring  story,  told  with  an  eloquence  not  un- 
worthy of  Daniel  Webster  or  of  Edward  Everett.  And 
I  find  in  it  this  golden  passage  :  "  We  have  lived  to 
see  the  prohibition  of  slavery  in  the  earliest  constitu- 
tution  of  Vermont  become  a  part  of  the  fundamental 
law  of  this  nation.  May  the  time  be  not  far  off  when 
its  declaration  against  that  other  and  more  widespread 
curse  which  corrupts  and  degrades  free  government, 
[the  'spoils  system']  shall  be  likewise  put  in  force  by 
the  body   of  the  American  people."* 

Illustrations  still  more  impressive  of  the  way  in 
which  power  long  quiescent  may  of  a  sudden,  when 
the   fitting    opportunity  occurs,  spring   into    vigorous 

*  Oration  at  the  dedication  of  the   Bennington  Battle  Monument,  etc., 
by  E.  J.  Phelps. 


240  T^HE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

and  baleful  action,  niiglit  be  drawn  from  the  history 
of  the  Christian  Church.  Alike  in  the  civil  and  in 
the  ecclesiastical  sphere  unlimited  power  will  always 
act,  sooner  or  later,  according  to  its  quality,  its  oppor- 
tunities, and  the  passions  or  weaknesses  of  human 
nature.  When  all  these  are  combined  they  produce 
the  appropriate  results  according  to  an  inexorable 
law  of  cause  g,nd  effect. 

Let  it  once  appear  that  the  mind  of  the  Church  is 
esj^ecially  sensitive  resj)ecting  a  certain  questionable 
opinion  relating  to  theology  or  to  Biblical  criticism, 
for  example,  and  nothing  is  easier  than  to  arouse 
suspicion,  distrust,  or  hostile  feeling  toward  any  man 
who  is  supjDosed  to  entertain  that  opinion.  And  if  he 
chance  to  be  a  professor-elect  in  a  theological  seminary 
and  subject  to  the  disapproval  of  the  General  Assem- 
bly, nothing  will  be  easier  than  to  facilitate  such 
disapproval  by  idle  rumor,  false  charges,  misunder- 
standing, and  all  the  varied  methods  of  ecclesiastical 
influence  and  manipulation.  Had  the  New  School 
General  Assembly  possessed  in  1850  a  veto  on  the 
appointment  of  j^rofessors  in  Union  Seminary,  and  had 
the  theological  atmosphere  then  been  as  susceptible  of 
sudden,  violent  changes  as  it  is  to-day,  I  have  great 
doubt  whether  Henry  B.  Smith  could  have  taken  the 
chair  of  Church  History  without  a  sharj)  struggle. 
He  w^as  charged  with  being  too  ardent  an  admirer 
of  "  German  Theology ;"  and  his  splendid  eulogy 
of  Schleiermacher  in  the  famous  address  at  Andover 
on  the  Belations  of  Faith  and  Philosophy,  in  1849, 
which  seemed  to  afford  some  countenance  to  the  charge, 
excited  anxiety  and  misgiving,  not  to  say  positive 
hostility,   in  the  minds  of  not  a  few  excellent  men, 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  241 

who  at  the  time  represented  the  old  orthodoxy.  Upon 
his  nomination  in  the  Union  Board  of  Directors  in 
1850  questions  relating  to  this  subject  were  asked,  to 
which,  fortunately,  such  men  as  Dr.  Adams  and  Dr. 
Stearns  were  able  on  the  spot  to  give  satisfactory  an- 
swers. But  had  these  questions  got  into  the  religious 
newspapers,  been  scattered  broadcast  over  the  Church, 
and  so  aroused  public  notice  and  controversy,  the 
result  would  probably  have  been  a  peremptory 
withdrawal  of  his  name  by  Professor  Smith,  or  else 
a  disapproval  of  his  appointment  by  the  General 
Assembly. 

And  so,  a  few  years  later,  had  the  New  School 
General  Assembly  possessed  the  veto  power,  and  had 
the  theological  atmosphere  been  as  strongly  charged 
with  anxiety,  suspicion,  or  hostile  feeling,  as  it  is  in 
the  Presbyterian  Church  to-day,  I  believe  the  nomina- 
tion of  Boswell  D.  Hitchcock  to  the  chair  of  Church 
History  would  almost  certainly  have  resulted  in  the 
ultimate  defeat  of  his  election.  As  it  was,  and  in  spite 
of  the  earnest  support  of  such  directors  as  Dr.  Adams 
and  Dr.  Stearns  and  of  Professor  Henry  B.  Smith  in 
the  faculty,  misrepresentation  did  its  work  so  effec- 
tually that,  by  the  advice  of  his  friends  and  of  friends 
of  the  seminary  he  withdrew  his  name  as  a  candidate. 
Not  until  a  year  later,  when  unreasonable  suspicions  and 
whisperings  had  spent  their  force,  was  he  renominated 
and  unanimously  elected.  And  those,  I  may  add,  who 
had  most  strenuously  opposed  his  appointment,  were 
soon  numbered  among  his  warmest  friends.  The  case 
forcibly  illustrated  the  wisdom  of  Professor  Smith's 
objection  to  the  election  of  professors  by  vote  of  the 
General  Assembly.     "  It  might  bring  into  the  Assem- 


242  THE    UNIOX   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

bly  local,  personal,  and  theological  questions,  which  it 
would  be  better  to  settle  in  a  narrower  field." 

Had  the  General  Assembly  of  1837  possessed  a  veto 
upon  the  election  of  professors  in  the  new  seminary, 
just  founded  in  the  city  of  New  York,  it  is  highly  prob- 
able that  the  apj)ointment  of  Edward  Robinson,  too, 
would  have  met  with  strong  opposition,  if  not  actual 
disapproval,  on  the  part  of  the  Assembly.  "  German 
Rationalism  "  or  "Neology,"  was  at  that  time  regarded 
with  the  utmost  apprehension,  and  no  one  suspected  of 
sympathy  with  it,  still  more  of  following  its  exegetical 
and  theological  methods,  would  have  been  allowed  to 
pass,  unchallenged,  into  the  chair  of  Biblical  Literature. 
Moses  Stuart,  to  whom  Biblical  learning  in  this  coun- 
try owes  such  a  lasting  debt  of  gratitude,  was  widely 
viewed  as  a  dangerous  man,  if  not  a  heretic ;  and  Dr. 
Robinson  had  for  years  been  intimately  associated  with 
Moses  Stuart  at  Andover,  in  cultivating  and  naturaliz- 
ing German  scholarship  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic. 
It  is  well-known  that  on  this  account  leading  ministers 
in  the  Presbyterian  Church  felt  in  doubt  about  him. 
Had  his  election  as  a  Union  professor  been  subject  to 
the  veto  of  the  General  Assembly,  which  passed  the 
Exscinding  Acts — and  that  was  the  Assembly  to  which 
the  appointment  would  have  been  reported — no  one  can 
say,  I  repeat,  that  it  would  not  have  been  sharply  con- 
tested, if  not  positively  disapproved. 

The  simple  truth  in  the  case  is,  that  those  best  qual- 
ified to  fill  the  most  important  chairs  in  our  theological 
institutions,  are  apt  to  be  comparatively  young  men, 
and  young  men,  too,  of  so  much  originality,  intellectual 
force,  and  independence  of  thought  and  utterance,  as 
easily  to  expose  themselves  to  be  misunderstood  and 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  243 

distrusted  by  old-fashioned  conservatives,  with  whom 
they  are  yet  at  bottom  in  genuine  sympathy.  It  was 
so  with  Henry  B.  Smith,  Koswell  D.  Hitchcock,  Lewis 
F.  Stearns,  and  others  I  might  name.  How  true  is 
what  Dr.  A.  A.  Hodge  wrote  in  his  letter  to  Professor 
Smith : 


'& 


The  majority  of  any  Assembly  must  be  necessarily  ignor- 
ant of  the  special  wants  and  local  conditions  of  any  semi- 
nary, and  of  the  qualifications  of  candidates  proposed  for  its 
chairs  of  instruction.  The  best  of  these  are  generally  young 
men,  up  to  the  time  of  their  nomination  known  only  to  a 
few.  To  vest  the  choice  in  the  General  Assembly  will  tend 
to  put  prominent  ecclesiastics  into  such  positions,  rather 
than  scholars,  or  men  especially  qualified  with  gifts  of  teach- 
ing. As  the  population  of  our  country  becomes  larger  and 
more  heterogeneous,  and  the  General  Assembly  increases  pro- 
portionately, the  difficulties  above  mentioned,  and  many  others 
easily  thought  of,  will  increase. 

When  these  objections  to  the  election  of  professors 
by  the  General  Assembly  are  added  to  those  already 
mentioned,  how  very  strong  they  are !  And  yet  the 
objections  to  the  exercise  of  the  veto  power  by  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly  seem  to  me  to  involve  nearly  all  the 
evils,  infelicities,  and  perils  of  the  electing  power,  with 
still  others  and  even  greater  ones  peculiar  to  itself. 
These  objections,  should  the  veto  power  be  continued, 
are  likely  to  increase  very  much  the  difficulty  of  obtain- 
ing the  best  men  to  fill  chairs  of  instruction  in  our  Pres- 
byterian seminaries.  The  Assembly's  veto  will  repel 
them,  especially  if  they  belong  to  other  communions. 
I  can  speak  here  from  personal  knowledge.  One  of 
the  first  points  raised  by  my  nephew,  the  lamented  Pro- 
fessor Stearns,  of  Bangor,  against  accepting  the  call  to 


244  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

Union  Seminary,  given  liim  in  the  summer  of  1890, 
was  the  possibility  that,  even  should  he  accept,  be  re- 
ceived without  objection  into  the  Presbytery  of  New 
York  and  enter  upon  the  duties  of  his  chair,  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly  might,  five  or  six  months  later,  undo  all 
that  had  been  done,  veto  his  appointment,  mark  him 
as  not  competent  or  not  sound,  and  thus  set  him  adrift 
in  the  world.  I  thought  at  the  time  that  such  fears 
were  chimerical.  I  cannot  think  so  now.  The  action 
at  Detroit  forbids  it.  Lewis  F.  Stearns  is  now  recog- 
nized as  a  theologian  of  the  very  best  type,  and  his 
sudden  death  is  universally  deplored  as  a  heavy  loss  to 
the  American  Church.  In  1890,  he  was  comparatively 
unknown ;  his  inaugural  address  at  Bangor  had  not 
escaped  severe  criticism ;  although  a  conservative,  he 
was  also  a  liberal,  independent,  and  fearless  thinker ; 
and  I  can  readily  understand  now,  as  I  could  not  in 
1890,  what  a  plausible  case  in  favor  of  disapproving  his 
appointment  might  readily  have  been  made  out  before 
the  General  Assembly.  At  all  events,  the  veto  power 
helped  to  deter  him  from  accepting  the  call  to  Union 
Seminary.  And  if  continued,  it  will  tend  strongly  to 
deter  others  like  him  from  accepting  a  similar  call. 

It  is  argued,  I  know,  that  the  Presbyterian  Church 
ought  surely  to  have  some  voice  in  the  education  of  her 
own  ministers  and  teachers.  I  do  not  deny  it.  Much 
that  is  said  on  this  point  seems  to  me  just  and  reason- 
able. I  assent  to  it  heartily.  The  trouble  is  not  in  the 
principle,  but  in  its  application.  By  what  method  can 
the  Church,  in  the  actual  condition  of  things,  make  its 
influence  felt  most  wisely  and  effectually  in  training  up 
her  own  pastors  and  teachers?  That  is  the  question. 
And  what  I  now  maintain  is,  that  the  veto  power  on 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  245 

the  election  of  professors  in  her  theological  seminaries  is 
not  the  right  method.  It  does  not  meet  the  real  difficul- 
ties. It  does  not  at  all  meet  the  difficulty,  for  example, 
in  the  case  of  that  large  number  of  future  Presbyterian 
ministers  who  are  receiving  their  education  in  the  acade- 
mies, colleges,  and  theological  seminaries  of  other  de- 
nominations. Nor  does  it  meet  the  difficulty,  or  solve 
the  problem,  when  they  are  in  training  in  our  own  in- 
stitutions. A  great  deal  may  be  done  and  is  done  in 
the  academy,  in  the  college,  and  in  the  seminary, 
through  the  kindly  and  wise  supervision  of  the  local 
church  and  its  pastor,  of  the  Presbytery  and  of  the 
Board  of  Education.  And  then  as  to  the  choice  of  the 
best  theological  instructors, — best  in  learning,  in  char- 
acter, in  gifts  of  teaching,  in  soundness  of  doctrine,  in 
zeal  for  the  cause  and  kingdom  of  Christ, — such  Boards 
of  Directors  as  those  of  Union,  Princeton,  Auburn, 
McCormick,  and  the  rest,  are  far  better  qualified  to 
make  it  than  any  General  Assembly.  A  Board  of 
Directors  can  take  weeks  or  months,  if  needful,  to  in- 
vestigate and  make  inquiries.  It  is  jDcrfectly  familiar 
with  "  the  special  wants  and  local  conditions  "  of  the 
institution  under  its  care.  Every  director  acts  under 
the  pressure  of  a  "  solemn  promise,"  and  of  a  feeling  of 
direct,  personal,  as  well  as  official,  responsibility  hardly 
possible  in  the  case  of  a  great  j^opular  Assembly.  The 
best  Board  of  Directors,  it  is  true,  is  an  imperfect  body 
and  may  commit  mistakes.  But  mistakes  are  inevita- 
ble under  any  method.  Imperfection  and  possible 
errors  cling  to  every  system. 

(f/)    ^yould  an  ecclesiastical  veto  on  the  appointment 
of  religious  editors  be  a  good  tiling  f 


246  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

How  would  this  veto  power  work  in  other  spheres  ? 
Look,  for  example,  at  the  denominational  religious 
newspaper  hy  which  opinion  and  character  in  the 
Presbyterian  Church  are  so  largely  influenced.  It  is 
one  of  the  most  powerful  of  all  agencies  in  the  training 
alike  of  her  ministers,  her  elders  and  ^^rivate  members, 
and,  above  all,  in  the  training  of  her  children.  How 
many  of  her  homes  it  enters  every  week !  And  in 
every  one  of  these  homes  it  is  read  with  avidity  ;  it 
wins  confidence  and  affection  ;  becomes  a  trusted  friend 
and  counsellor ;  shapes  in  no  small  degree  all  the  fam- 
ily thinking  about  Christian  truth,  about  the  kingdom 
of  God,  about  the  ways  of  Providence  and  whatever  is 
going  on  in  the  Avorld.  It  is,  in  a  word,  a  ruling  pow- 
er in  the  Presbyterian  Church,  alike  in  the  domain  of 
thought  and  action.  As  an  instrument  of  immediate, 
all-pervading  influence,  whether  over  private  or  public 
opinion,  it  far  surpasses  the  theological  seminary.  At 
what  a  disadvantage  a  j^rofessor  speaks  compared  with 
the  editor  who  has  the  ear  of  thousands  and  tens  of 
thousands  every  Sabbath  day,  and,  more  or  less,  all 
the  other  days  of  the  week !  Should  not  the  Presby- 
terian Church  have  some  kind  of  sujDcrvision  of  an 
agency  so  closely  connected  with  her  duty  to  the  fam- 
ilies under  her  care  and  with  her  dearest  interests? 
Ought  she  not  to  have  some  voice  in  selecting  the  men 
who,  directly  or  through  their  contributors,  speak  to 
her  people  so  often  and  with  such  immense  effect  ?  It 
seems  to  me  that,  in  answer  to  these  questions,  an  argu- 
ment in  favor  of  subjecting  the  denominational  religious 
])aper  to  ecclesiastical  control  by  giving  the  Assembly 
a  veto  upon  the  appointment  of  its  editor,  might  be 
made  out  (piite  as  strong,  to  say  the  least,  as  that  for 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  247 

the  veto  on  the  election  of  theological  professors.  And 
yet  the  argument  would  never  convince  American 
Presbyterians — and  it  is  of  them  I  am  now  speaking — 
that  the  great  religious  papers  of  the  denomination, 
The  Eva7igelist,  The  Observer,  The  Presbyterian,  The 
Presbyterian  Jour  mil,  The  Presbyterian  Banner,  The 
Herald  and  Presbyter,  The  Interior,  The  Northern 
Presbyterian,  The  Occident,  and  all  the  rest,  would,  on 
the  whole,  be  as  effectively,  or  as  wisely  and  safely, 
conducted  by  editors  appointed,  directly  or  indirectly, 
by  the  General  Assembly,  as  under  the  existing  inde- 
pendent system  they  are  conducted  by  the  veterans, 
who  with  so  much  toil  and  skill  have  made  them  what 
they  are.  My  patience  has,  now  and  then,  been  sorely 
tried  by  the  "  course  "  of  some  of  these  veterans  ;  but 
it  would,  probably,  have  been  tried  far  more  severely 
had  their  places  been  filled  by  a  majority  vote  of  the 
General  Assembly.  And  if  some  of  them  have  seemed 
to  me  at  times  very  unfair  and  harsh  toward  Union 
Seminary  in  the  present  "  unpleasantness,"  I  can  never 
forget  what  invaluable  service  they  rendered  to  the 
cause  of  reunion,  while  that  great  event  in  our  Presby- 
terian annals  was  passing  into  history. 

The  religious  jDress  has  its  faults  and  imperfections, 
like  everything  human ;  but  it  is  an  agency  of  vast 
power  and  reach  in  furtherance  of  the  kingdom  of 
Christ  on  earth.  And  as  it  advances  nearer  to  its 
ideal  and  becomes  more  completely  guided  and  inspired 
by  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  this  will  more  and  more 
appear.  One  of  the  wisest  men  I  ever  knew  and  one 
of  my  best  friends  was  Asa  Cummings,  the  biographer 
of  Dr.  Payson,  and  for  many  years  editor  of  the  old 
Christian  Mirror.     I  owe  him  no  small  debt  of  grati- 


248  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

tude  for  the  influence  of  that  paper,  while  under  his 
care,  ujDon  my  early  religious  life  and  opinions.  And 
it  left  its  beneficent  imj^ress  upon  all  the  Congrega- 
tional churches  of  Maine,  But  to  return  to  the  point : 
my  contention  is,  that  the  argument  in  favor  of  an 
Assembly  veto  on  the  election  of  professors  in  our 
theological  seminaries,  on  the  ground  that  the  Church 
ought  to  have  some  direct  supervision  of  the  education 
of  her  ministers,  is  quite  as  strong  in  favor  of  an  eccle- 
siastical veto  on  the  appointment  of  the  editors  of  our 
religious  family  papers ;  and  yet  that  it  is  equally  un- 
desirable in  either  case.  Is  it  not  very  strange,  then, 
that  among  the  many  wise  men  who  concurred  in  vest- 
ing in  the  General  Assembly  a  veto  power  on  the  elec- 
tion of  professors,  no  one  seems  to  have  forseen  this  ? 
Not  more  strange,  I  rej^ly,  than  that  among  the  many 
wise  men  who  took  part  in  planning  and  founding 
Princeton  Seminary,  for  example,  no  one  seems  to 
have  foreseen  that,  sooner  or  later,  the  election  of  its 
23rofessors  by  the  General  Assembly  would  have  to  be 
abandoned  for  a  simj^ler  and  better  method.  Time 
and  experience  taught  the  friends  of  Princeton  and 
other  seminaries  this  better  method ;  nor  would  any- 
thing now  tempt  them  to  return  to  the  old  system. 
And,  as  I  have  said  before,  if  the  veto  power  were 
freely  given  up  by  a  unanimous  vote  of  the  General 
Assembly,  just  as  the  electing  power  in  1870  and  later 
was  freely  given  up,  the  result,  I  for  one  do  not 
doubt,  would  be  equally  satisfactory. 

{e)  Objection  to  annulling  the  agreement  between 
Union  Seminary  and  the  General  Assemhh/  on  (tccount 
of  the  other  seminaries. 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  249 

It  has  been  argued,  I  know,  that  the  agreement  of 
1870  was  not  only  a  strict  legal  compact  between  Union 
Seminary  and  the  General  Assembly,  but  between 
Union  and  the  other  seminaries ;  and  that  its  abroga- 
tion would  at  once  remand  the  other  seminaries  to 
their  state  anterior  to  the  reunion.  But  the  argument 
seems  to  me  to  be  based  upon  an  entire  misapprehen- 
sion of  the  facts  in  the  case.  Why  should  this  follow  ? 
The  General  Assembly  of  1870,  of  its  own  free  will, 
by  a  unanimous  vote,  offered  to  remit  the  election  of 
professors  in  the  seminaries  under  its  proprietorship 
and  control  to  their  own  Boards  of  Direction,  and 
actually  did  remit  it  in  the  case  of  Princeton.  And 
this  was  done  expressly  on  the  "  self-evident  "  ground 
"  that  there  were  great  disadvantages  and  perils  in 
electing  professors  and  teachers  by  the  Assembly  itself, 
without  sufficient  time  or  opportunity  for  acquaint- 
ance with  the  qualifications  of  men  to  be  appointed  to 
offices  of  such  responsibility."  Is  not  the  ground  as 
"self-evident  "  now  as  it  was  in  1870  ?  And  surely  no 
one  will  question  the  perfect  authority  of  the  Assem- 
bly, then  or  now,  to  let  the  seminaries  under  its  "  pro- 
prietorship and  control  "  elect  their  own  professors. 
And  as  to  Lane  and  Auburn,  if  they  desire  to  go  back 
to  their  state  in  1870,  the  repeal  of  a  mere  by-law  will 
enable  them  to  do  so  ;  or,  better  still,  a  simple  expres- 
sion of  such  desire  to  the  General  Assembly  would, 
probably,  secure  the  object,  and  that  without  contro- 
versy or  friction. 

The  special  reason  for  investing  the  Assembly  with 
the  veto, — namely,  to  allay  "jealousy," — having  ceased, 
what  harm  could  come  of  giving  up  the  veto  power 
itself?    No  seminary  would  cease  thereby  to  be  just  as 


250  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

truly  a  Presbyterian  institution  as  it  was  in  the  begin- 
ning, and  is  now.  It  is  not  in  any  sense  the  veto 
power  that  makes  Union,  for  example,  a  Presbyterian 
seminary.  Its  history,  its  plan  and  constitution  give 
it  this  character.  Its  connection  with  the  great  Pres- 
byterian Church  does  not  depend  in  the  least  upon  its 
being  under  the  jDroprietorship  and  control  of  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly.  Every  one  of  its  professors  will  still 
have  to  be  an  "  ordained  minister  of  the  Gospel  "  and 
to  "  approve  of  the  Presbyterian  doctrine  and  Form  of 
Government."  Every  one  of  its  professors  will  be 
under  the  suj)ervision  and  control  of  a  Board  of 
Directors  representing  the  intelligence,  wisdom,  public 
sjDirit,  and  Christian  character  of  the  whole  adjacent 
Presbyterian  community.  "  The  board  shall  watch 
over  the  fidelity  of  all  who  may  be  employed  in  giving 
instruction  ;  shall  judge  of  their  competency ,  doctrine 
and  morals;  and  shall  have  jDOwer  to  remove  any 
officer,  professor  or  teacher  from  office."  (Article  I, 
Section  4.)  And  then  committees  from  Synod  and 
Presbytery  are  cordially  invited  to  attend  the  annual 
examinations  and  freely  report  concerning  the  same 
to  their  several  bodies.  In  the  way  of  supervision 
what  more  than  all  this  can  reasonably  be  asked  for  ? 
And  when  I  look  over  the  catalogues  of  Princeton, 
Auburn,  McCormick,  Lane  and  other  seminaries,  and 
read  the  names  of  their  directors,  I  repeat  the  question  : 
In  the  way  of  supervision  what  more  can  reasonably  be 
asked  for  than  the  watch  and  care  of  such  weighty 
bodies  of  select  Christian  ministers  and  laymen  ? 

Let  us  keep  in  mind  that  no  method  or  amount  of 
formal  suj)ervision  can  insure  against  more  or  less  jDrac- 
tical  sliortcoming  and  mistakes  in  tlie  training  of  our 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  251 

ministers.  When  the  Church  has  done  the  best  she 
can  do,  she  will  have  to  confess  that  the  whole  matter 
is  beset  with  difficulties  beyond  the  control  of  mere 
human  wisdom.  And  in  any  case  no  small  pro^DOrtion 
of  the  ministers  and  theological  teachers  of  the  Presby- 
terian Church  will  continue  to  be  trained  in  other  than 
Presbyterian  schools  of  divinity.  Our  Churches  will 
continue  to  call  pastors  and  our  theological  seminaries 
will  continue  to  call  professors  in  view  of  their  qualifi- 
cations, rather  than  with  reference  to  the  places  where 
they  were  educated.  William  Adams,  Edward  Robin- 
son, Henry  B.  Smith,  Poswell  D.  Hitchcock,  were 
trained  in  Congregationalism ;  and  how  many  more  of 
the  leading  New  School  ministers  and  scholars  came 
from  other  denominations  ?  How  many  of  the  most 
learned,  useful,  and  honored  Presbyterian  pastors  and 
teachers  of  to-day  were  called  from  other  branches  of 
the  Church  of  Christ? 

( f)    The  issues  wider  than  Presbyterianism. 

And  this  leads  me  to  say,  that  the  problem  to  be 
solved  involves  issues  of  far  wider  scope  than  the  bounds 
of  Presbyterianism.  It  concerns  vital  interests  of  the 
whole  Christian  scholarship  of  the  country.  Such,  at 
all  events,  is  the  conviction  of  many  of  the  foremost — 
and,  I  may  add,  most  conservative — representatives  of 
that  scholarship  in  New  England,  in  the  Middle  States, 
and  throughout  the  Great  West.  I  wish  it  were  proper 
to  make  public  the  letters  bearing  upon  this  point, 
which  have  come  to  me,  as  also  to  Union  directors, 
from  far  and  near ;  for  the  fair  and  catholic  temper  in 
which  the  writers  express  the  conviction  would  carry 


252        THE  rxiox  theological  seminary. 

hardly  less  weight  than  their  distinguished  names — 
names  honored  alike  in  Church  and  State.  "  I  do  not 
believe,"  writes  one  of  them,  a  theologian  held  in  uni- 
versal respect  for  his  learning  and  impartial  judgment, 
"  I  do  not  believe  that  in  the  times  in  which  we  are 
now  living  there  can  be  a  due  amount  of  freedom  in  a 
school  of  theology  which  is  dependent,  in  the  appoint- 
ment of  its  professors,  on  the  will  of  a  great  ecclesiasti- 
cal body  like  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church."  ''  I  confess,"  writes  another,  a  pastor  of  emi- 
nent gifts  and  wide  influence,  "  I  confess  that  to  my 
mind  nothing  could  be  more  disastrous  than  ecclesias- 
tical management  of  our  theological  seminaries.  If  the 
Presbyterian  Church  should  establish  such  a  super- 
vision and  rigidly  carry  it  out,  its  institutions  would 
soon  cease  to  have  any  part  in  Christian  leadership." 
Another,  ranking  among  the  first  men  in  the  nation, 
both  as  a  jurist  and  a  diplomatist,  closes  a  letter  thus  : 
"  There  is  no  doubt,  in  my  mind,  that  the  general  in- 
telligence of  the  country  is  on  the  side  of  the  seminary." 
It  is,  in  a  Avord,  the  common  interest  of  American 
Christianity  and  of  sound  scholarship  that  the  claims 
of  a  reasonable  liberty  in  theological  and  Biblical 
inquiry  and  study  should  be  carefully  guarded  to  the 
end  that  the  truth  may  have  free  course  and  be  glori- 
fied. I  advocate  no  license  to  rash  and  destructive 
criticism  or  teaching.  Nor,  to  quote  the  words  of 
the  founders  of  Union  Seminary  in  tlie  preamble 
to  the  constitution,  have  I  sympathy  with  the 
"  extremes  of  theological  speculation  "  any  more 
than  witli  those  of  "ecclesiastical  domination."  I  have 
no  wish  to  silence  the  rightful  voice  of  the  Church  in 
tlie  assertion  and  defense  of  those  great   doctrines  of 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  253 

Revealed  Truth,  which  are  the  very  substance  of  her 
faith,  or  in  bearing  witness  against  the  errorists  Avho 
deny  them.  I  believe  most  profoundly  in  the  inspir- 
ation and  ruling  authority  of  the  Holy  Scriptures. 
And  no  Church  in  the  land  can  more  safely  or  better 
trust  its  theological  seminaries  than  the  Presbyterian. 
It  is  a  Church  of  deep  and  strong  convictions.  It  is  a 
Church,  committed,  through  and  through,  to  the  prin- 
ciple that  God  alone  is  Lord  of  the  conscience,  to  the 
infallible  authority  of  His  word,  and  to  the  "inalien- 
able rights  of  private  judgment"  in  the  intepretation 
of  that  word.  It  is  a  Church  that  loves  and  knows  how 
to  work  for  the  Divine  Master,  and  is  full  of  the 
genuine  enthusiasm  of  humanity.  It  has  its  faults,  to 
be  sure,  but  its  virtues  outweigh  them  a  hundred  fold. 
Howard  Crosby's  memorable  words,  which  amidst 
great  ajoplause  rang  through  the  Church  of  the  Cove- 
nant on  the  27tli  of  May,  1869,  shortly  before  the 
whole  vast  audience  rose  to  give  its  unanimous  vote  for 
reunion,  are  yet,  I  trust,  to  be  fulfilled  to  the  letter : 
"  I  hojDC  when  the  conservators  of  orthodoxy  and  the 
conservators  of  liberty  come  together,  as  Dr.  Adams 
has  said,  tliere  ivill  be  an  orthodox  liberty  mid  a  free 
orthodoxy  such  as  the  ivorld  has  never  seen.^^ 

The  solution  of  the  veto  problem  by  annulling  the 
agreement  of  1870  commended  itself  to  a  large  major- 
ity of  the  directors  of  Union  Seminary  as  the  only  one 
now  feasible  ;  and  accordingly,  in  a  memorial  to  the 
General  Assembly  Avhich  met  at  Portland,  Oregon,  on 
May  19,  1892,  the  board  requested  the  Assembly  to 
join  with  it  in  such  a  settlement.      The  friends  of  the 


254  THE    UXIOX   THEOLOGICAL   SE.VIXARV. 

seminary  were  much  encouraged  to  liope  for  a  favor- 
able issue  of  tliis  request  by  the  enijDhatic  language  of 
The  Pyeabyterkin,  of  Philadelphia,  one  of  the  ablest 
and  most  influential,  as  well  as  conservative  weekly 
papers  of  the  denomination  :  "  We  have  no  doubt  that 
if  this  is  the  wish  of  the  authorities  of  the  seminar}', 
and  they  made  known  their  desire  to  the  Assembly,  it 
would  be  ready  to  give  the  seminary  a  full  release." — 
Their  hope,  unhajDpily,  proved,  as  we  shall  see,  al- 
together fallacious. 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  255 


CHAPTER    V. 

THE  MEMORIAL  OF  THE  BOARD  OF  DIRECTORS  OF  UNION 
SEMINARY,  ASKING  THE  ASSEMBLY  TO  JOIN  WITH 
IT  IN  ANNULLING  THE  AGREEMENT  OF  1870. —THE 
ASSEMBLY  REFUSING  TO  COMPLY  WITH  THIS  RE- 
QUEST,   PROPOSES    ARBITRATION. THE    SEMINARY 

THEREUPON  SEVERS  ALL  CONNECTION  WITH  THE 
ASSEMBLY  CAUSED  BY  THE  AGREEMENT  OF  1870, 
AND  RESUMES  ITS  ORIGINAL  FREEDOM  AND  INDE- 
PENDENCE OF  ECCLESIASTICAL  CONTROL. A  GEN- 
EROUS GIFT. SEQUEL  TO   THE    ASSEMBLY'S    ACTION 

IN  REGARD  TO  UNION  SEMINARY. 

We  come  now  to  the  closing  scene  and  incidents  of 
the  conflict  between  the  seminary  and  the  General 
Assembly.  The  scene  opens  with  an  appeal  to  the 
Assembly,  which  met  at'  Portland,  Oregon,  on  May  19, 
1892,  to  join  with  Union  Seminary  in  annulling  the 
agreement  of  1870. 

{a)  3IemoTial  of  the  Board  of  Directors  to  the  Assem- 
bly at  Portland. 

This  memorial  and  other  documents  which,  it  was 
thought  desirable  to  lay  before  the  Assembly,  were 
carried  across  the  continent  to  Oregon  by  a  special 
messenger,  Mr.  E.  M.  Kingsley,  the  recorder  and  an 
honored  member  of  the  board.  This  was  done  in 
token  of  high   respect  for  the  Assembly  as  well  as  to 


256  T^HE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

give  it  important  information  bearing  upon  the  action 
and  feeling  of  the  directors.  Mr.  Kingsley  was  him- 
self invited  to  read  the  memorial ;  and  received,  both 
on  the  platform  and  on  the  floor  of  the  Assembly,  the 
friendliest  treatment.  "  At  2  p.  m.,  to-day  [so  he 
wrote  on  May  23d  to  President  Hastings]  I  Avas  allowed 
the  honor  of  the  platform  and  read  our  two  papers  as 
impressively  as  my  somewhat  husky  voice  would  per- 
mit. The  full  house  listened  attentively  and  at  one  or 
two  points  applauded  vigorously.  Dr.  Briggs  and 
wife  arrived  this  morning.  This  is  to  be  an  interest- 
ing week,  for  Revision,  Heresy  and  Rebellion  are 
exciting  topics."  Indeed,  so  far  as  concerned  the  semi- 
nary, my  impression  is  that  at  this  time,  and  through- 
out the  whole  painful  controversy,  the  institution  itself 
was  still  regarded  with  general  pride  and  affection. 
Such  names  as  Edward  Robinson,  Thomas  H.  Skinner, 
Henry  B.  Smith,  William  Adams  and  Roswell  D. 
Hitchcock  had  still  kept  for  it  a  tender  spot  in  the 
heart  of  the  Presbyterian  Church.  The  memorial  of 
the  Board  of  Directors  was  as  follows  : 

To    THE    General    Assembly     of    the    Presbyterian 
Church  in  the  United  States  of  America. 

Reverend  and  Dear  Brethren  : 

There  are  certain  points  which  we  could  not  properly 
embody  in  the  report  of  our  conference  with  the  committee 
sent  to  us  by  the  last  General  Assembly.  These  })oints  we 
desire  to  present  in  the  following  memorial,  as  they  have  an 
important  bearing  upon  our  case  in  this  Assembly. 


ANOTHER  DECADE    OE  ITS  HISTORY.  257 

1.  We  desire  first  of  all  to  say  that,  while  we  do  not 
question  that  the  Assembly  believed  they  had  the  right  to 
do  as  they  did  at  Deti'oit,  yet  we  claim  that,  as  one  of  the 
parties  to  the  agreement  of  1870,  our  understanding  of  that 
agreement  must  of  necessity  govern  our  action.  We  claim 
that  the  Assembly  at  Detroit  transcended  its  power  under 
the  agreement  in  such  a  way  as  to  inflict  a  serious  wrong 
upon  this  institution.  We  are  far  from  thinking  that  the 
General  Assembly  intended  to  violate  the  agreement  of  1870 
in  any  way,  and  your  committee  has  conceded  that  this  board 
had  no  such  intention. 

2.  For  more  than  twenty  years  the  agreement  has  remained 
unquestioned,  simply  because  untested.  The  possibilities  and 
the  perils  of'  such  an  agreement  must,  in  the  nature  of  the 
case,  lie  dormant  until  revealed  by  a  practical  application. 
The  one  and  sole  aim  of  the  concession  of  the  veto  power 
made  by  Union  Seminary  was  "  the  peace  and  harmony  of 
the  Church."  But  the  very  first  exercise  of  the  power  has 
greatly  disturbed  "  the  peace  and  harmony  of  the  Church," 
and  compelled  us  to  realize  that  it  is  a  power  fraught  with 
peril  alike  for  the  seminaries  and  for  the  Church.  In  1869, 
in  presenting  the  report  of  the  Committee  of  Conference  on 
reunion,  Dr.  George  W.  Musgrave  said  to  the  Old  School 
Assembly  that  the  articles  in  the  "  declaration "  "are  not  a 
compact  or  covenant,  but  they  suggest  to  the  Assembly  what 
are  suitable  arrangements.  .  .  .  They  are  not  terms  of  the 
union.  They  may  be  annulled  or  modified  as  any  future 
Assembly  may  deem  proper.  We  told  our  brethren,"  he 
said,  "that  we  were  unwilling  to  tie  the  hands  of  the  future 
Church  of  God."  (The  Presbyterian  Reunion  Memorial 
Volume,  p.  546.)  In  the  same  spirit  with  Dr.  Musgrave, 
referring  to  the  ninth  article  of  the  "declaration"  which  dealt 
with   the    question    of  the    seminaries,    the  Assembly  of   the 


258  '^^E   UXION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

united  Church  in  1870  said:  "It  was  intended  as  a  measure 
for  the  maintenance  of  confidence  and  harmony,  and  not  as 
indicating  tlie  best  method  for  all  future  time.  It  had  been 
discovered  by  years  of  experiment  in  the  Old  School  branch 
that  the  election  of  professors  in  the  seminaries  directly  by 
the  General  Assembly  involved  many  '  disadvantages,  infelic- 
ities, not  to  say,  at  times,  perils.'"  (Minutes,  1870,  p.  148.) 
In  December,  1867,  Dr.  A.  A.  Hodge  wrote  to  Dr.  Henry 
B.  Smith  :  "It  is  proper,  it  is  almost  a  necessity,  that  each 
institution  should  be  left  in  the  management  of  those  upon 
whose  support  it  exclusively  depends.  The  majority  of  any 
Assembly  must  be  necessarily  ignorant  of  the  special  wants 
and  local  conditions  of  any  seminary,  and  of  the  qualifications 
of  candidates  proposed  for  its  chairs  of  instruction.  The 
best  of  these  are  generally  young  men,  up  to  the  time  of  their 
nomination  known  only  to  a  few.  To  vest  the  choice  in  the 
General  Assembly  will  tend  to  put  prominent  ecclesiastics 
into  such  positions,  rather  than  scholars,  or  men  especially 
qualified  with  gifts  for  teaching.  As  the  population  of  our 
country  becomes  larger  and  more  heterogeneous,  and  the 
General  Assembly  increases  proportionably,  the  difficulties 
above  mentioned  and  many  others  easily  thought  of,  Avill 
increase." 

Dr.  Henry  B.  Smith,  expressed  his  own  views  in  the 
following  language :  "  It  is  a  fair  and  serious  question 
whether  a  General  Assembly,  representing  the  Presbyterian 
Church  thi'oughout  the  whole  United  States,  especially  in 
view  of  the  numbers  in  that  Church,  will  be  the  best  or 
even  a  suitable  body  to  choose  the  professors  and  manage 
the  concerns  of  all  the  Presbyterian  seminaries  scattered 
throughout  the  country.  AVe  very  much  doubt  wlictlicr  this 
will  be  a  wise  arrangement.  It  may  work  well  in  Scotland 
but    Scotland    has    its    limits.         It    mitiht    bring    into    the 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OE  ITS  HISTORY.  259 

Assembly  local,  personal    and    theological  questions   which  it 
would  be  better  to  settle  in  a  narrower  field." 

These  views  were  generally  accepted  by  the  united 
Church,  and  led  the  Assembly  at  the  time  of  the  reunion, 
to  offer  to  surrender  the  power-  of  electing  the  professors  in 
those  seminaries  which  had  been  under  the  control  of  the 
Old  School  branch  of  the  Church. 

3.  But  it  is  our  conviction  that  there  are  more  and 
stronger  objections  to  the  possession  of  the  veto  power  than 
of  the  electing  power  of  the  Assembly.  The  failure  to  elect 
a  professor  nominated  by  a  seminary  is  comparatively  a  neg- 
ative thing.  The  veto  is  a  positive  verdict,  both  against  the 
professor  appointed  and  against  the  Board  of  Directors  which 
appointed  him  ;  and,  as  we  have  seen,  it  may  be  a  verdict 
without  a  trial,  without  a  hearing,  and  without  reasons  given. 
The  injustice  and  the  peril  of  such  an  exercise  of  ecclesias- 
tical power  in  our  judgment,  can  hardly  be  overestimated. 
The  multitude,  who  had  looked  on  from  a  distance,  whb  had 
heard  only  one  side  of  the  case,  and  who  had  no  close  per- 
sonal knowledge  of  the  interests  involved,  could  disregard 
and  override  the  matured  judgment  of  those  who  iiad  the 
fullest  personal  knowledge,  and  who  had  ut  stake  rights 
commensurate  with  their  obligations.  The  veto  power  may 
be  hasty,  arbitrary,  unjust  and  even  cruel.  The  electing 
power  may  be  unwise  and  hasty,  but  it  cannot  begin  to  do 
such  injury  as  may  be  done  by  the  veto  power.  We  are 
persuaded,  therefore,  that  it  would  be  far  better  for  the 
Church,  as  well  as  for  the  seminaries,  that  the  veto  power 
should  no  longer  reside  in  the  General  Assembly. 

4.  But  it  is  claimed  by  some  that,  in  order  to  protect  the 
Church  against  heretical  teaching  in  the  seminaries,  the  As- 
sembly must  have  and  maintain  the  veto  power.  Does  that 
really  protect  her?     If  a   professor,  one    year   after   his    ap- 


260  THE    UXION   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

pointment,  or  at  any  later  time,  depart  from  the  faith,  the 
temporary  veto  power  cannot  reach  him.  Has  the  Church 
then  no  other  and  better  resource  for  her  defense?  Evidently 
the  power  of  disapproval  is  insufficient ;  it  can  reach  only 
exceptional  cases,  and  can  afford  no  general  or  permanent 
protection.  Our  admirable  Presbyterian  polity  is  far  better 
than  the  artificial  device  of  1870  for  protecting  the  Church 
against  unsafe  teaching  in  the  seminaries.  A  Presbyterian 
minister,  whether  he  teach  from  the  pulpit  or  from  the  pro- 
fessor's chair,  has  the  inalienable  right  to  insist  that,  if  his 
teaching  be  called  in  question,  he  shall  first  of  all  have 
refuge  and  defense  in  his  Presbytery,  to  which  alone  belongs 
"  original  jurisdiction."  In  this  regard  the  professor  and  the 
pastor  have  equal  rights  ;  but  under  the  arrangement  of  1870, 
there  is  a  special  discrimination  against  the  professor.  The 
Assembly  has  no  veto  power  over  the  appointment  of  a  pas- 
tor. To  us  this  seems  an  abnormal  and  unjust  discrimina- 
tion, liot  consistent  with  our  polity.  If  either  professor  or 
pastor  teach  heresy,  the  one  resort  alike  for  each  is,  in  the 
first  instance,  the  Presbytery.  If  in  any  case  a  Presbytery 
fail  to  do  its  duty,  the  General  Assembly  can,  directly  or 
through  the  Synod,  reach  and  rebuke  that  Presbytery,  and 
require  that  the  unsound  teacher  be  brought  to  trial.  Be- 
sides this,  another  normal  method  of  protection  is  in  the 
right  of  the  Presbyteries  to  examine  carefully  the  graduates 
of  the  seminaries  who  apply  for  licensure,  and  to  reject  such 
as  have  imbibed  false  teaching  and  are  not  sound  in  the 
faith.  This  twofold  protection  by  the  Presbytery,  it  seems 
to  us,  is  as  ample  as  it  is  constitutional.  In  our  judgment, 
therefore,  those  who  insist  that  the  veto  power  is  necessary 
for  the  protection  of  the  Church,  show  a  radical  lack  of  con- 
fidence in  our  Presbyterian  polity,  which  lack  of  confidence 
we  cannot  share. 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  261 

5.  As  the  appointed  directors  and  gnardians  of  this  school 
of  Christian  learning,  we  deeply  realize  our  solemn  obliga- 
tion to  act  faithfully  for  its  interests  according  to  our  own 
conscientious  convictions,  under  our  charter  and  constitution. 
We  are  charged  with  a  sacred  trust  handed  down  to  us 
from  the  past  by  noble  men  whom  the  Presbyterian  Church 
has  long  delighted  to  honor.  We  must  keep  that  trust  in- 
violate. There  can  be  no  conflict  between  real  obligations. 
Our  loyalty  alike  to  the  Church  and  to  Union  Seminary 
constrains  us  to  believe  that  it  would  be  far  better,  for  both 
Church  and  seminary,  that  the  relations  which  existed  so 
harmoniously  between  the  two,  far  more  than  a  third  of  a 
century  before  1870,  should  now  be  restored. 

6.  It  is  claimed,  however,  by  some  that  if  the  agreement 
of  1870  should  be  abrogated.  Union  Seminary  would  cease 
to  be  Presbyterian.  Can  that  be?  Does  its  Presbyterianism 
date  from  1870?  What  was  this  seminary  before  that  time? 
No  charge  of  heresy  was  ever  brought  against  it.  Can  those 
who  remember  such  honored  names  among  our  founders  and 
directors  as  Erskine  ISIason.  Albert  Barnes,  Samuel  Hanson 
Cox,  William  Adams,  Edwin  F.  Hatfield,  Jonathan  F. 
Stearns  and  J.  Few  Smith,  besides  such  laymen  as  Richard 
T.  Haines,  William  E.  Dodge,  Anson  G.  Phelps  and  Nor- 
man White,  not  to  mention  others  no  less  distinguished, — 
can  those  who  remember  these  names  say  that  before  the 
reunion  this  seminary  was  not  Presbyterian  ?  We  submit 
that  if  it  be  only  the  concession  of  the  veto  power  to  the 
Assembly  which  made  this  institution  Presbyterian,  then  its 
Presbyterianism  is  something  which  we  cannot  understand. 
Our  Presbyterianism  is  in  our  whole  history,  and  in  the 
personnel  of  our  directors  and  of  our  faculty. 

In  conclusion,  permit  us  to  say,  that  through  all  this 
painful  misunderstanding  it   has  been   to    us   a   marvel  inex- 


262  THE   UNIOX  THEOLOGICAL   SEMLXARY. 

plicable  that  any  of  our  l)rethren  could  possibly  suppose  that 
men,  so  -well  known  to  the  Church  as  are  our  directors  and 
our  professors,  could  or  can  tolerate  anything  that  will 
undermine  the  divine  authority  of  the  inspired  Word,  to 
which  we  cling  with  all  our  hearts  as  the  only  infallible 
rule  of  faith  and  practice,  and  to  whose  maintenance  all  our 
lives  are   consecrated. 

There  are  other  and  weighty  considerations  which  we 
have  preferred  not  to  urge.  While  there  exists  the  un- 
doubted right  of  ^either  party  to  the  agreement  of  1870  to 
act  alone  in  its  abrogation,  yet  this  memorial  is  submitted 
w'ith  the  earnest  hope  that  your  reverend  body  may  cordial- 
ly concur  with  us  in  annulling  the  arrangement  of  1870, 
thus  restoring  Union  Seminary  to  its' former  relations  to  the 
General  Assembly. 

With  great  respect  on  behalf  of  the  Board  of  Directors, 

\H[gned\  Charles  Butler,  President. 

lSignecr\  E.  M.  Kixgsley,  Secretary. 

May  5,  1892. 

(b)  Repoi't  of  the  Detroit  Committee  of  Conference 
with  Union  Seminary.  Report  of  the  Stand  ing  Commit- 
tee on  Theological  Seminaries  as  adopted  by  the  Assem- 
bly at  Portland.     Arbitration  again  proposed. 

The  Rev.  S.  A.  Mutchmore,  D.  1).,  chairman  of  the 
Standing  Committee  on  Theological  Seminaries,  was 
one  of  the  publishers  and  editors  of  The  Presbyterian, 
of  Philadelphia  ;  and  the  confident  opinion,  expressed 
by  a  Aveighty  editorial  in  the  paper  that,  if  Union  Sem- 
inary so  desired,  the  Assembly  would  be  ready  to  give 
it  "  a  full  release,"  naturally  led  the  friends  of  the 
seminary  to  hope  that,  as  chairman  of  the   Committee 


ANOTHER   DECADE   OE  ITS  HISTORY.  263 

on  Theological  Seminaries,  he  might  be  able  to  bring 
about  the  fulfillment  of  The  Presbyterian's  assurance. 
But  a  very  different  result  followed.  Here  is  Dr. 
Mutchmore's  report : 

Having  due  regard  to  the  overtures  and  all  the  other 
papers  in  the  case  of  Union  Theological  Seminary,  etc.,  re- 
ferred to  the  committee,  the  Assembly  takes  the  following- 
action  : 

1.  That  the  Assembly  endorses  the  interpretation  of  the 
compact  of  1870  as  expressed  by  the  action  of  the  Assem- 
bly of  1891. 

2.  That  the  Assembly  declines  to  be  a  party  in  the 
breaking  of  tlie  compact  with  Union  Theological  Seminary. 

3.  That  the  Assembly  is  persuaded  that  the  Church 
should  have  direct  connection  with  and  control  over  its 
theological  seminaries. 

4.  That  the  Assembly  appoint  a  committee  of  fifteen, 
eight  ministers  and  seven  ruling  elders,  to  take  into  consid- 
eration the  whole  subject  of  the  relation  of  the  Assembly  to 
its  theological  seminaries,  confer  with  the  directors  of  those 
seminaries,  and  report  to  the  next  General  Assembly  such 
action  as  in  their  judgment  will  result  in  a  still  closer  rela- 
tion between  the  Assembly  and  its  seminaries  than  that 
which  at  present  exists. 

5.  That  the  Assembly  dismiss  the  Committee  of  Confer- 
ence appointed  last  year,  with  the  heartiest  thanks  for  its 
faithfulness  and  highest  appreciation  of  the  service  rendered 
the  Church. 

An  additional  j^aper,  on  the  Arbitration  of  the  Theological 
Seminary  Compact  of  1870,  in  the  matter  of  the  transfer  of 
a  professor  from  one  chair  to  another  in  the  same  seminary, 
was  adopted,  and  is  as  follows  : 


264  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL    SEMINARY. 

Resolved,  1.  That  this  General  Assembly  recognize  the 
status  quo  as  to  the  difference  of  interpretation  given  by  the 
directors  of  Union  Seminary  to  the  Theological  Seminary 
Compact  of  1870,  from  that  given  by  the  Assembly's  Com- 
mittee of  Conference,  and  in  accordance  with  the  proposition 
suggested  by  the  six  members  of  the  Committee  of  Confer- 
ence in  their  supplementary  report,  this  Assembly  agrees  to 
refer  the  difference  of  interpretation  of  the  said  compact  of 
1870  as  to  transfer,  to  a  Committee  of  Arbitration. 

Resolved,  2.  That  a  committee  of  five  members,  represent- 
ing this  Assembly,  shall  be  appointed  by  the  Moderator, 
which  shall  select  five  persons  as  arbitrators,  to  meet  a  like 
number  selected  by  the  directors  of  Union  Seminary ;  and 
these  ten  shall  select  five  others  ;  and  by  the  fifteen  thus 
chosen  shall  the  interpretation  of  the  compact,  (viz  :  as  to 
the  transfer  of  a  professor,)  be  decided. 

The  proposal  of  arbitration,  with  w^iich  this  rejiort 
closed,  at  once  astonished  and  shocked  the  friends  of 
Union  Seminary.  The  question  of  arbitration  had  been 
raised  at  the  meeting  of  the  hoard  wdth  the  Assembly's 
Committee  of  Conference,  held  in  January,  1892 ;  and 
both  parties  agreed  that  the  case  was  not,  under  the 
circumstances,  a  proper  subject  for  arbitration.  This 
decision  gave  great  relief  to  the  Board  of  Directors,  for 
reasons  which  can  easily  be  imagined.  But  there  is 
no  occasion  for  imagining  what  the  reasons  were.  The 
following  memorandum  can  leave  no  doubt  respecting 
their  character  or  their  conclusive,  unabated  force  : 

New   York,  January  25,  1892. 
While  my  recollections  of  the  closing  scenes  with  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly's  Conference  Committee  (22d  inst.)  are  yet  fresh 
and  vivid,  I  desire  to  record  them  for  future  reference. 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  265 

Two  papers  were  presented  to  the  board  ;  the  first  that 
which  was  finally  adopted,  and  the  second  a  proposal  for 
the  arbitration  of  the  questions  at  issue.  We  saw  at  once 
that  the  first  paper  was  a  modification  of  one  which  had 
been  presented  informally  upon  his  own  responsibility,  at  a 
previous  meeting,  by  Mr.  Edward  S.  Durant.  We  missed 
the  word  "  parity  "  as  applied  by  Mr.  Durant  to  the  two 
parties  to  the  agreement  of  1870.  Some  other  changes  also 
were  noted.  After  discussion  it  was  decided  by  the  board 
to  send  Mr.  William  A.  Booth  and  myself  as  a  committee 
to  make  the  three  following  inquiries  of  the  Conference 
Committee  : 

1.  Why  was  the  word  "parity,"  as  applied  in  Mr. 
Durant's  paper  to  the  two  parties  to  the  agreement  of  1870, 
omitted  in  the  paper  now  presented  to  us  ? 

2.  Would  the  adoption  of  this  paper  which  your 
committee  has  presented  to  us,  in  your  judgment  involve  in 
any  way  the  surrender  of  our  reserved  rights  with  reference 
to  the  agreement  of  1870  as  those  rights  have  been  set 
forth  in  the  supplementary  paper  presented  to  you  for  your 
consideration. 

3.  The  arbitration  proposed  in  your  second  paper, 
would  it  be  decisive  of  Dr.  Briggs'  case,  or  Avould  it  decide 
only  the  abstract  question  as  to  the  future  ? 

The  answer  to  the  first  question  w^as  that  the  word 
"parity,"  was  omitted  because  it  was  regarded  as  "inex- 
pedient;" it  might  be  misunderstood.  The  answer  to  the 
second  question  was  addressed  to  Mr.  George  Junkin  because 
he  is  a  lawyer  and  which  he  pleasantly  referred  to  Dr.  Pat- 
ton,  saying  "  he  is  as  good  a  lawyer  as  I  am."  I  said  to 
Mr.  Junkin,  I  do  not  think  Dr.  Patton  is  as  good  a  lawyer 
as  you  are  ;  I  want  your  opinion.  If  we  accept  this  paper, 
do  vou  consider  that  we  shall  sacrifice  or    surrender  any    of 


266  THE   UNION  THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

those  points  in  our  case  which  are  presented  in  our  supple- 
mentary paper  with  reference  to  the  agreement  of  1870? 
He  answered  "  No."  Mr.  McCook,  said,  "Of  course  not,"  and 
Dr.  Patton  assented  to  this  opinion.  I  remarked,  we  are  in- 
tensely  desirious  to  be  entirely  frank  with  you.  We  do  not 
want  you  to  go  away  and  afterwards  say  that  we  had  not 
dealt  plainly  with  you.  If  we  should  see  fit,  under  painful 
necessity  at  any  time,  to  assert  that  we  must  withdraw  from 
the  agreement  of  1870,  and  on  the  grounds  stated  in  that 
supplementary  paper,  Avould  you  feel  that  our  right  to  do 
this  had  been  compromised  by  our  acceptance  of  your  paper? 
They  assured  me  that  they  understood  that  we  would  be  at 
liberty  to  act  according  to  our  Judgment.  As  to  the  third 
question,  they  said  that  arbitration  would  involve  the  con- 
crete case  of  Dr.  Briggs  and  not  merely  the  abstract  question 
for  the  future,  of  the  difference  between  an  appointment  and 
a  transfer.  Thereupon  I  appealed  to  them  on  the  ground  of 
personal  considerations.  If  we  accept  arbitration.  Dr.  Briggs 
will  instantly  resign.  Thdt  I  knoio.  Probably  Dr.  Brown 
will  resign.  That  I  believe  ;  and  probably  there  would  be 
a  general  breaking  up  of  our  faculty.  But  more  than  all 
this.  Arbitration  would  call  in  question  the  crowning  act  of 
Dr.  Butler's  life.  We  all  revere  and  love  him  and  could 
never  consent  to  involve  him  in  arbitration.  Would  you  as 
Christian  gentlemen,  be  willing  to  put^  us  to  such  a  disad- 
vantage before  the  Church  and  the  world  as  our  refusal  to 
accept  arbitration  would  certainly  involve?  With  real  mag- 
nanimity and  kindness,  they  answered  "  No.  We  would 
by  no  means  take  such  advantage  of  you."  Dr.  Jolinson 
said,  "  I  proposed  arbitration  in  your  interest  and  should  be 
glad  to  withdraw  the  proposition."  This  was  an  immense  re- 
lief to  me.  Hardly  had  we  returned  to  the  board,  before 
Dr.  Patton  and  Dr.  Johnson  appeared  and  requested  jx-rmis- 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  267 

sion  to  withdraw  the  second  paper  which  proposed  arbitra- 
tion. It  was  accordingly  withdrawn  and  evidently  the  board 
was  greatly  relieved  by  this  generous  and  kindly  action. 
Thereupon  the  first  paper  with  the  condition  on  record  that 
it  should  be  understood  in  the  light  of  our  supplementary 
paper  was  adopted  by  a  rising  vote,  four  members  of  the 
board  declining;  to  vote.  Then  the  Conference  Committee 
was  called  in  and  the  result  was  announced  to  them.  I  in- 
sisted that  my  report  of  the  Conference  Committee's  answers 
to  the  three  questions  as  given  above,  should  be  repeated  in 
their  presence  and  in  the  presence  of  the  board,  so  that  there 
should  be  no  mistake  in  our  record  of  the  condition  on  which 
we  had  accepted  the  final  paper.  Accordingly,  I  repeated 
the  answers  to  the  three  questions  as  given  above,  and  the 
answers  were  taken  down  by  the  "  sworn  stenographer." 
Only  one  correction  w-as  made  and  that  by  Dr.  William  H. 
Roberts.  I  had  omitted  the  word  "  inexpedient "  in  the  an- 
swer to  the  first  question.  That  word  was  at  once  inserted, 
and  then  the  record  was  accepted  as  complete   and   accurate. 

It  was  directed  that  only  such  notice  should  be  given  to 
the  press  as  Dr.  Patton  and  I  could  agree  upon.  It  was 
also  agreed  that,  under  the  terms  of  the  paper  just  adopted, 
the  report  of  the  board  to  the  General  Assembly  should  first 
be  submitted  to  Dr.  Patton,  and  that  his  report  to  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly  should  be  submitted  to  me. 

Then  after  the  singing  of  the  doxology,  the  benediction 
was  pronounced,  and  the  conference  adjourned  sine  die. 

[Signed]  Thomas  S.  Hastings. 

My  recollections  accord  with  the  above. 

[Signed]  William  A.  Booth. 

Owing  to  Dr.  Patton's  illness,  his  report  to  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly  was  not  submitted  to  Dr.  Hastings  until 


268  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

the   Assembly  had  actually  met  at  Portland.     In  ac- 
knowledging the  report,  Dr.  Hastings  wrote : 

If  this  were  all  that  your  committee  had  presented  to 
the  General  Assembly,  every  one  in  our  board  woukl  be  en- 
entirely  satisfied ;  but,  if  it  be  true,  as  the  papers  represent, 
that  Roberts  and  McCook  have  added  thereto  the  recommen- 
dation to  appoint  a  committee  of  arbitration  thcd  will  be  re- 
garded by  us  as  a  breach  of  faith. 

The  memorandum  signed  by  Dr.  Hastings  and  Mr. 
Booth  S23eaks  for  itself  and  needs  no  inter j)reter.  Cer- 
tainly, the^  renewed  proposal  of  arbitration  could  not 
have  been  the  result  of  ignorance  or  misapprehension  ; 
for  not  only  were  six  members  of  the  Detroit  Committee 
of  Conference  commissioners  to  the  Assembly  at  Port- 
land, but  they  themselves  suggested  the  proposal  of 
arbitration.  It  was  a  part  of  their  supplementary  re- 
port. Dr.  Wm.  H.  Roberts,  the  secretary  of  that 
committee  and  Stated  Clerk  of  the  General  Assembly, 
was  one  of  the  six,  and  offered  the  resolution.  During 
the  discussion  on  the  report  of  the  Committee  on  The- 
ological Seminaries  he  said  :  "I  rise  to  a  question  of 
]3rivilege  as  a  member  of  the  Assembly's  Committee  of 
Conference.  I  desire  to  remove  a  false  impression  in 
many  minds  that  the  committee  was  unanimous  in  the 
action  reached  by  it  in  conference  with  the  directors 
of  Union  Seminary.  For  the  information  of  the  house, 
I  simply  read  two  lines  from  the  minutes  of  the  com- 
mittee : 


ANOTHER   DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  269 

'  On  the  vote  to  adopt  the  paper  as  a  whole,  l)oth  Dr. 
Roberts  and  Mr.  MeCook  gave  notice  that  they  reserved  the 
right  to  act  independently  upon  such  portions  of  the  paper 
as  were  not  satisfactory  to  them.' " 

The  paper  referred  to  seems  to  have  been  Mr.  Dn- 
rant's  as  modified  by  the  committee.  Dr.  Roberts,  in 
the  Assembly  at  Washington,  a  year  later,  justified  his 
resokition  on  tlie  ground  that  it  proposed  a  different 
sort  of  arbitration  from  that  proposed  in  New  York ; 
viz.,  the  abstract  question  respecting  the  transfer,  not 
the  concrete  case  of  Dr.  Briggs.  But  the  speech  of  Mr. 
George  Junkin  made  no  such  distinction,  and  he  was 
one  of  the  six  members  of  the  Detroit  Committee  of 
Conference,  who  drew  up  the  Portland  report  and  pro- 
posed arbitration.  Mr.  Junkin  advocated  arbitration 
as  the  best  way  of  settling  not  only  the  abstract  ques- 
tion about  a  transfer,  but  the  concrete  case  of  Dr.  Briggs. 
He  made  no  allusion  to  the  proposal  of  arbitration  in 
New  York.  That  proposal,  indeed,  seems  to  have  been 
carefully  concealed  from  the  public.  Here  is  what 
Mr.  Junkin  said  : 

Mr.  Moderator  and  Brethren  : — We  have  nothing  to 
do  with  any  statements  of  what  took  place  in  the  Confer- 
ence Committee,  and  all  allusions  to  stenographic  reports 
and  all  reflections  on  Dr.  Patton  and  the  last  Assembly  are 
out  of  order.  We  have  simply  to  do  with  reports  made  to 
us  by  our  committee  and  by  the  memorial  from  Union  Sem- 
inary. We  have  kept  our  mouths  closed  as  to  what  took 
place  in  that  conference,  because  it  was  so  understood,  and 
those  who    have    not    done    so,    in    my    opinion,    have    done 


270  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

wrong.  Now,  what  is  the  condition  of  things?  They  re- 
ported to  us  that  we  were  in  datusi  quo.  That  meant,  we 
recognized  that  Union  has  a  right  to  consider  that  agree- 
ment, and  it  has  construed  it  conscientiously  and  believes  it 
has  a  right  to  keep  Dr.  Briggs  in  his  chair.  We  say  they 
did  wrong.  Now,  on  the  other  hand,  the  seminary  recog- 
nized that  we  acted  conscientiously.  There  we  were  face  to 
face.  How  are  we  to  settle  it?  Are  we  to  stand  in  that 
position  year  after  year?  Six  of  us  came  to  this  Assembly 
having  no  meeting  of  our  Conference  Committee,  owing  to 
Dr.  Patton's  illness.  The  report  presented  by  Dr.  Patton 
is  not  the  report  of  the  Conference  Committee.  It  is  all 
right,  however.  We  six  presented  a  report  in  the  interests 
of  peace.  We  had  no  desire  to  do  what  I  have  heard 
politicians  do,  try  to  put  anybody  in  a  hole.  I  would  like 
to  have  a  man  come  to  me  and  tell  me  that  I  was  capable 
of  trying  to  put  Union  Seminary  "  in  a  hole " !  It  has 
been  said  that  Ave  can  go  to  law.  No,  we  said  we  would 
arbitrate.  If  the  arbitrators  say  that  Union  is  wrong,  then 
lot  Union  have  the  grace  of  God  to  acknowledge  it.  If,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  arbitrators  say  the  General  Assembly  is 
wrong,  then  I  hope  the  grace  of  God  will  give  the  Assem- 
bly the  impulse  to  say  to  Union,  "  You  were  right,  and  you 
had  a  right  to  keep  Dr.  Briggs  there."  Is  not  that  the 
Christian  way  in  which  honest  men  ought  to  settle  their 
diiferences  ?  I  am  a  lawyer,  but  I  always  advise  my  clients 
not  to  go  to  law  if  they  can  help  it,  because  the  law,  while 
perfect,  has  to  act  through  human  instrumentality,  Avhich  is 
wonderfully  imperfect.  And  why  can't  we  settle  this  mat- 
ter so  that  Union  won't  go  out  like  Ishmael  from  the  tent 
of  Abraham  among  the  heathen,  possibly.  (Laughter.) 
Well,  I  did  not  mean  what  you  are  laughing  at,  but  some- 
times a   man  builds  wiser  then  he  knew.     (Renewed  laugh- 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  271 

ter.)  But  I  take  it  all  back,  because  It  is  not  in  my 
heart  to  throw  any  slur  upon  Union.  I  want  to  keep 
her  in  the  Presbyterian  fold ;  and  I  do  not  believe  that 
Union  Seminary  directors  are  going  to  lay  down  this  com- 
pact after  twenty  years,  in  the  face  of  our  Christian  effort 
to  effect  a  settlement  by  arbitration.     (Applause.) 

In  Dr.  Hastings'  memorandum,  allusion  is  made  to 
answers  taken  down  by  the  "  sworn  stenographer." 
There  are  two  large  volumes  of  notes  taken  by  this 
"sworn  stenographer"  during  the  discussion  in  the 
board  and  also  in  conference  with  the  Assembly's 
committee,  A  few  extracts  from  this  stenographic 
report  will  serve  to  throw  additional  light,  backward 
and  forward,  upon  the  attitude  and  temper  of  both  the 
parties  concerned.  Here  is  a  copy  of  Mr.  Durant's 
paper  as  first  presented  to  the  board  : 

Recognizing  the  parity  of  the  two  parties  to  the  agree- 
ment of  1870  and  agreeing  substantially  to  all  the  facts 
relative  to  the  present  conflict  of  opinion  between  the  parties, 
something  like  the  following  might  be  done  if  the  Board 
of  Directors  and  the  committee  should  concur  therein  : 
each  party  may  fully  respect  the  opinion  of  the  other,  and 
conclude  that  the  difference,  for  the  present,  is  irreconcil- 
able. Tlie  seminary  might  report  to  the  next  General 
Assembly,  substantially,  that  their  understanding  of  the  com- 
pact differed  from  that  of  the  General  Assembly,  as  applied 
to  transfers,  and  that  although  the  Assembly  had  disap- 
proved of  the  appointment  of  Dr.  Briggs,  they  had  not 
seen  their  way  clear,  in  view  of  their  own  obligations,  to 
do  other  tlian  continue  liim  in  the  active  duties  of  his  office. 


272  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

It  would  seem  that  tliey  might  with  propriety  do  this, 
because  the  language  of  the  Assembly's  action  is  that  the 
Assembly  disapproves  of  the  appointment  of  Dr.  Briggs  to 
the  chair  of  Biblical  Theology  by  transfer  from  another 
chair.  It  is  not  defined  as  to  what  the  effect  of  dis- 
approval shall  be,  and  the  seminary  would  naturally  have 
some  range  in  treating  of  the  matter  and  in  construing  their 
own  action.  The  committee,  on  the  other  hand,  might  report 
the  facts  to  the  Assembly,  and  in  view  of  the  parity  of  the 
parties,  and  in  recognition  of  and  in  respect  for  the  integ- 
rity of  the  parties  and  their  honest  difference,  recommend 
that  the  status  quo  be  recognized  and  no  action  taken. 

Then  it  would  seem  desirable  that  the  committee  recom- 
mend to  the  Assembly  the  careful  appointment  of  a  suitable 
committee  to  confer  with  representatives  of  the  several  sem- 
inaries, and  recommend  to  the  Assembly,  with  the  concur- 
rence of  the  seminaries,  such  changes  in  their  mutual  eccle- 
siastical and  legal  relations  as  may  be  deemed  wise  and  best. 

Here  is  Mr.  Durant's  paper  as  revised  and  j)resented 
to  the  Board  of  Directors  by  the  Committee  of  Confer- 
ence : 

Recognizing  the  fact  that  the  General  Assembly  and  the 
Union  Theological  Seminary  are  parties  to  the  agreement  or 
compact  of  1870,  as  contained  in  the  memorial  of  the  direc- 
tors to  the  Assembly  of  1870,  and  also  the  fact  that  there 
is  a  wide  difference  of  opinion  in  the  matter  of  the  interpre- 
tation of  said  agreement  or  compact,  something  like  the  fol- 
lowing might  be  done  : 

First.  Each  party  may  fully  respect  the  opinion  of  the 
other  and  conclude  for  the  present  that  the  difference  is  irre- 
concilable.     Second.    The  seminary  might  report  to  the  next 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  273 

General  Assembly,  substantially,  that  their  understanding  of 
the  compact  diifered  from  that  of  the  General  Assembly  as 
applied  to  transfers,  and  that  although  the  Assembly  has  dis- 
approved of  the  appointment  of  Dr.  Briggs,  the  directors  had 
not  seen  their  way  clear  in  view  of  their  own  obligations  to 
do  other  than  to  continue  him  in  the  active  duties  of  his 
office.  Third.  The  committee  on  the  other  hand  might  re- 
port the  facts  to  the  Assembly,  and  in  view  of  the  relations 
of  the  parties,  and  in  recognition  of  their  honest  difference, 
recommend  that  the  status  quo  be  recognized  in  the  hope  that 
some  action  may  be  taken  which  may  lead  to  a  harmonious 
adjustment  of  all. the  matters  at   issue. 

Second  paper.  The  General  Assembly's  committee  would 
also  express  its  willingness  to  join  with  the  board  in  asking 
the  General  Assembly  to  agree  to  refer  the  difference  of  in- 
terpretation of  the  compact  of  1870  as  to  transfers,  to  a 
Committee  of  Arbitration. 

Mr.  Durant's  paper,  as  thus  modified  by  the  Com- 
mittee of  Conference,  elicited  while  under  discussion  in 
the  board  some  very  striking  expressions  of  feeling  and 
opinion.  I  will  give  a  few  of  them.  Here  is  Henry 
Day's  comment  upon  it : 

Mr.  President  : — There  is  to  my  mind  a  very  studied 
intention  in  that  third  section  to  bind  this  seminary  hand 
and  foot  in  regard  to  the  legal  connection  between  it  and  the 
General  Assembly.  In  the  first  place,  Mr.  Durant's  opinion 
as  to  whether  we  are  equal  parties  or  not  has  been  cut  out. 
I  had  a  long  talk  of  two  hours  with  Dr.  Roberts  and  Mr, 
Durant  together  yesterday  morning,  and  Mr.  Durant  in- 
sisted that  we  ought  to  be  recognized  as  equal  parties  here 
and  he  meant  to  bring  that  in  in  his  paper,  and  if   you    re- 


274  THE    rXION   THEOLOGICAL    SEMIXARY. 

collect,  he  put  it  in.  Dr.  Roberts  said  he  doubted  very  much 
whether  Ave  were  equal  parties  ;  he  thought  that  when  we 
were  handed  over  by  the  New  School  to  the  General  As- 
sembly, the  General  Assembly  had  acquired  right  over  us ; 
that  they  controlled  us  legally,  and  that  they  had  a  per- 
fect right  to  legislate  for  us  exactly  as  they  do  for  Princeton. 
Now,  gentlemen,  that  is  the  view  of  the  other  side — of  IVIr. 
Junkin  and  of  Dr.  Roberts — and  that  is  the  view  of  a  cer- 
tain class  of  men  in  the  Presbyterian  Church  that  mean  to 
hold  and  take  and  control  forever  this  seminary.  Mr.  Jun- 
kin is  one  of  the  sharpest  and  shrewdest  men  I  know. 

What  they  want  is  this,  that  we  shall  let  this  issue  slide 
along  and  say  nothing  about  it,  so  that  within  a  year  or  two 
years  they  can  say :  "  Gentlemen,  this  whole  question  was  up 
when  we,  representing  the  General  Assembly,  were  conferring 
with  you ;  you  never  saw  tit  to  take  action  in  regard  to  this 
vital  point,  then  ;  you  have  let  it  slip,  and  now  you  have  as- 
sented to  it."  They  will  say,  and  say  properly  that  that  was 
the  time — then  or  never — with  us  to  say  to  them,  ''  We  feel 
that  there  is  essential  trouble  at  the  bottom  of  this  very  con- 
tract, we  feel  that  it  is  illegal  "  and  that  when  we  had  a  com- 
mittee of  the  General  Assembly  here,  we  ought  to  have  taken 
steps  to  reform  it  and  make  it  legal. 

You  see  that  this  question  may  come  up  again,  it  may 
come  up  any  day.  They  may  except  to  any  one  of  our  pro- 
fessors that  we  may  nominate  within  a  year  or  two,  and  then 
you  will  liave  this  (piestion  again  upon  you,  was  it  legal  or 
not?  Now,  gentlemen,  is  the  time  to  settle  this  question  of 
legality,  and  if  it  is  not  settled  now,  you  can  never  open  your 
mouth  again,  and  you  ought  not  to.  You  never  can  say  that 
the  rights  that  you  have  properly  transferred  to  them  they 
did  not  properly  exercise,  and  for  one  I  say  distinctly  and 
frankly,  I  do  not  Avish  to  sit  on    this    board    and    luivo    that 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  275 

construction  put  upon  it  and  carried  to  the  General  Assem- 
bly for  them  to  act  upon  it.  I  think  you  will  destroy  this 
seminary  if  you  do.  You  will  never  get  another  dollar  of 
money,  in  my  opinion,  to  help  build  it  up,  and  I  believe  its 
usefulness  will  be  ended. 

I  do  not  sympathize  at  all  with  some  of  my  brethren  who 
say  :  "■  The  Church  is  against  us  ;  this  is  an  awful  row  that 
they  are  getting  up."  I  do  not  say  I  don 't  care  for  the 
Church,  I  do  care  for  the  Church,  l)ut  I  say  when  we  are 
riffht,  when  we  are  on  the  line  of  ri^ht,  I  do  not  care  what 
may  be  said  ;  we  can  bide  our  time.  Five  years  will  tell 
whether  this  seminary,  which  stands  in  the  grandest  part  of 
the  grandest  city  in  the  country,  will  or  will  not  stand  right 
before  the  Church ;  and  it  will  stand  right  if  we  assert  our 
independence,  as  our  charter  obliges  us  to  do,  as  the  pream- 
ble to  all  our  proceedings.  That  preamble  asserted  that  we 
were  to  be  an  independent  seminary,  and  if  we  fail  to  so 
maintain  it,  we  fail  to  uphold  the  plan  of  its  founders. 

Now,  brethren,  I  do  not  say  that  if  tliis  action  is  not 
taken,  I  will  have  lost  my  interest  in  this  seminary.  I  would 
not  under  any  circumstances  accept  the  paper  presented,  un- 
less I  put  a  rider  to  it,  and  I  should  not  vote  for  it  in  any 
event  as  it  is  put  now  ;  but  if  it  is  to  be  accepted,  I  would 
put  such  a  rider  to  it  as  this  "  without  hereby  assenting  to 
the  construction  by  the  General  Assembly  of  the  agreement 
of  1870,  and  reserving  our  right  to  act  hereafter,  according 
to  our  views  of  the  obligations  imposed  upon  us,  we  hereby 
accept  the  })roposition  of  the  General  Assembly's  committee 
as  a  measure  for  the  readjustment  of  said  agreement."  But 
recollect,  they  will  not  have  it  readjusted  except  as  to  the 
matter  of  transfer;  that  is  all  this  controversy  is  about  be- 
tween us — merely  about  this  transfer  of  Dr.  Briggs — and  we 
have  had  this  trouble  and  will  have    settled    but    this    single 


276  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

case.  AVe  ought  to  settle  forever  our  rights  and  connection 
with  the  General  Assembly  ;  if  we  do  not  settle  them  now, 
we  never  can — we  have  bound  ourselves  and  given  ourselves 
over.  Xow,  in  this  rider  I  say  that  we  accept  the  proposi- 
tion of  the  General  Assembly's  committee  as  a  measure  in- 
tended for  the  readjustment  of  the  said  agreement — the  whole 
agreement.  If  we  are  to  talk  about  it  bv  a  committee,  we 
want  it  all  readjusted,  and  this  is  the  theory  we  talked  about 
the  other  day ;  namely,  that  when  we  had  a  committee  of  the 
General  Assembly  here  we  would  readjust  our  entire  relations. 
Now  they  readjust  nothing.  What  do  they  readjust?  Nothing 
but  this  matter  of  transfer,  whether  when  you  transfer  a  man 
that  is  an  election,  that  is  all ;  whereas  the  readjustment  of  the 
said  agreement  should  be  in  a  manner  which  shall  be  consistent 
Avith  the  views  of  this  board  as  to  their  rights  and  duties. 

Other  directors  preceded  and  followed  Mr.  Day 
along  similar  lines.  All  seemed  to  regard  the  situation 
as  perilous  in  the  extreme.     Dr.  Ludlow  said : 

We  have  come  to  the  critical  moment  in  the  history  of  our 
institution.  We  have  come  to  a  chasm  and  are  in  danger  of 
dropping  into  it.  .  .  .  We  have  come  to  the  very  edge  of 
the  chasm — where  self-respect  and  the  life  of  the  institution  are 
at  stake.  That  is  the  reason  I  offer  the  resolution  that  no  fur- 
ther action  be  taken  by  us  until  the  Committee  of  Conference 
shall  have  responded  to  our  papers  submitted  for  their  consid- 
eration. They  are  good  papers  and  we  do  not  Avant  them  shelved 
or  pigeon-holed,  while  this  movement  for  arbitration  comes  up. 

Drs.  Parkhurst,  C.  Cuthbert  Hall,  and  Frazer  fol- 
lowed in  favor  of  the  resolution.  Mr.  D.  Willis  James 
said: 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  277 

I  agree  that  this  is  a  crisis  in  the  seminary.  We  are  not 
dealing  here  with  men  alone  ;  for  within  a  few  years  all  of 
us  will  have  passed  away.  We  are  dealing  with  the  life  of 
this  institution.  If  we  are  not  faithful  to  the  great  trust 
imposed  upon  us,  if  we  act  in  a  way  to  jeopardize  that  trust, 
woe  be  to  us.  I  beg  that  no  vote  be  taken  in  a  hurry.  I 
beg  you  will  stand  on  the  papers,  vigorous,  courteous  and 
strong,  that  we  presented  to  the  Conference  Committee ;  await 
their  answer  in  writing,  and  then  let  us  see  whether  we  can- 
not come  to  some  just  and  wise  conclusion.  But  let  us  take 
no  hasty  vote  which  we  may  regret  as  long  as  we  live,  and 
which  may  cause  this  seminary  to  descend  from  the  heights 
to  which  it  has  been  brought  by  the  labors  of  men  who  have 
gone  before. 

Dr.  Merle  Smith  said  it  was  a  pleasant  thing  to  read 
in  Mr.  Durant's  paper  the  frank  admission  that  the 
Assembly  and  the  seminary  are  on  grounds  of  perfect 
parity.  He  then  proceeded  to  argue  earnestly  against 
a  continuance  of  the  arrangement  of  1870.  That  ar- 
rangement, in  the  first  place,  does  not  protect  the 
Church  against  heresy,  as  it  cannot  touch  professors  in 
a  seminary  ;  and,  second,  it  interferes  with  the  right 
of  the  Presbytery ;  and  third,  whenever  the  veto  is 
exercised  it  is  sure  to  plunge  the  Church  into  con- 
fusion. 

Mr.  William  E.  Dodge  said : 

I  was  greatly  interested  in  the  paper  of  Mr.  Durant. 
The  board  feel  that  our  present  relation  to  the  General  As- 
sembly is  dangerous  and  cannot  continue  without  menacing 
the  Church  with   trouble.     It  is  painful  to  hear  some  of  the 


278  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMLNARY. 

remarks  of  Dr.  Patton.  He  states  that  if  the  same  matter 
came  up  again,  he  should  feel  bound  to  act  in  the  same  way. 
It  seems  to  me  that  the  way  in  which  the  matter  was  treated 
in  the  General  Assembly  at  Detroit,  was  so  unkind,  so  un- 
Presbyterian,  so  unfair,  that  it  should  not  be  done  again. 
Here  was  a  case  which  brought  up  virtually  the  reputation 
of  a  man.  There  was  an  utter  refusal  on  the  part  of  the 
committee  to  hear  a  single  word  on  the  other  side.  No  evi- 
dence of  any  kind  was  allowed.  The  whole  thing  was 
decided  entirely  ex  parte.  It  is  simply  impossible  in  this 
country  in  the  19th  century  to  have  the  character,  the  reputa- 
tion and  usefulness  of  any  man  imperilled  by  that  sort  of  "star 
chamber"  examination.      That  is  just  the  trouble  we  have  had. 

Drs.  Dickey,  Dana,  Holmes,  Booth,  Clark,  AVhite, 
Mcllvaine,  Frazer,  and  Messrs.  Jesup,  Kingsley, 
Hoj^pin  and  William  A.  Booth,  also  at  various 
points  took  part  in  the  discussion.  At  length  the 
oj^inion  was  ex2:>ressed  that  if  certain  questions  bear- 
ing upon  the  subject  were  to  be  answered  by  the 
Committee  of  Conference,  it  might  be  very  helpful  to 
the  board  in  reaching  a  right  conclusion.  Mr. 
McAlpin,  therefore,  suggested  whether  it  might  not  be 
well  for  Dr.  Hastings  and  Mr.  William  A.  Booth  to  go 
to  the  Committee  of  Conference  and  ask  just  those 
questions.  That  would  not  commit  the  board  at  all. 
The  questions  are  of  vital  imj^ortance  to  this  board. 
If  President  Hastings  and  Mr.  Booth  go  and  ask  these 
simi^le  questions,  it  will  aid  us  very  much.  Let  us 
get  an  explanation  from  the  committee  on  these  points. 
Mr.  McAlpin's  suggestion  was  adopted  ;  three  distinct 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OE  ITS  HISTORY.  279 

questions  were  formulated  and  carried  to  the  committee 
by  Dr.  Hastings  and  Mr.  Booth,  with  the  resuH  given 
already  in  their  paper  written  at  the  time.  During 
the  conference  between  the  Detroit  committee  and  the 
board,  a  letter  of  Judge  Noah  Davis,  of  New  York,  in 
regard  to  the  legality  of  the  agreement  of  1870,  which 
had  recently  aj)peared  in  print  and  excited  much 
attention,  was  repeatedly  alluded  to.  "  The  opinion  of 
Judge  Davis,"  said  Dr.  Hastings,  "  is  not  in  the  hands 
of  this  board,  and  has  not  been,  and  was  not  published 
at  our  suggestion,  or  with  our  knowledge."  The  opin- 
ion will  be  found  in  the  Appendix. 

What  came  of  the  proposal  of  arbitration,  made 
by  the  Portland  Assembly,  appeared  later  in  the 
report  of  the  Standing  Committee  on  Theological 
Seminaries  at  the  Washington  Assembly  in  1893.  In 
the  course  of  the  discussion  on  that  report  a  very  note- 
worthy statement  was  made  by  a  member  of  the 
Detroit  Committee  of  Conference,  one  who  was  not 
present  at  Portland.  I  refer  to  Dr.  Herrick  Johnson. 
His  statement  was  as  follows  : 

I  think  it  due  to  the  Union  Theological  Seminary  that 
a  word  should  be  said  with  reference  to  certain  matters  oc- 
curring year  before  last  in  the  interview  with  the  Board  of 
Directors  by  the  committee  appointed  by  the  Assembly  at 
Detroit,  in  order  that  this  refusal  to  arbitrate  may  not  seem 
to  be  so  rude  as  it  now  seems  on  the  surface.  The  question 
of  arbitration  was  submitted  by  that  committee.  I  remem- 
ber this  very  distinctly,  for  I  was   the  author  of  the  motion 


280  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

in  the  committee  to  ask  the  Board  of  Directors  to  unite  in 
requesting  the  Assembly  to  appoint  a  Committee  of  Arbitra- 
tion. This  was  before  the  Assembly  met  at  Portland,  and 
after  the  meeting  of  the  Assembly  at  Detroit,  the  committee 
having  been  appointed  by  the  Assembly  at  Detroit  to  confer 
with  the  Board  of  Directors  to  see  if  some  adjustment  of 
the  situation  might  be  made.  This  question  of  arbitration 
was  submitted  to  the  board,  and  the  board  respectfully 
requested  that  we  withdraw  that  proposition,  as  it  would 
seriously  interfere  with  the  efficiency  of  the  Union  Semi- 
nary. It  was  accordingly  withdrawn,  lo'ith  the  express  under- 
standing that  it  should  not  be  brought  be/ore  the  next  Assembly. 
I  think  this  modifies  somewhat  the  attitude   of  the  seminary. 

A  member — "Will  you  repeat  that?" 

Dr.  Johnson — I  say  that  the  question  of  arbitration  was 
moved  in  the  committee  appointed  by  the  Assembly  at 
Detroit — the  Committee  of  Conference  with  the  Board  of 
Directors.  I  made  the  motion  myself.  We  submitted  that 
matter  to  the  Board  of  Directors  in  our  interview,  and  asked 
that  they  unite  Avith  us  in  appointing  a  committee  that 
should  go  to  the  Assembly  and  request  a  Committee  of 
Arbitration.  The  board  very  respectfully  asked  us  to  with- 
draw that  suggestion,  for  reasons  which  were  indicated,  and 
on  that  account  it  was  withdrawn  ^rith  the  understanding  that 
the  proposition  should  not  be  made  to  the  Assembly. 

We   now   a|Dproacli   the   conclusion    of    the    whole 
matter. 

(c)  Final  action  of  the  Board  of  Director's  annulling 
the  agreement  of  1870.      The  vote. 

At  a  special  meeting  held  October  13,  1892,  the 
board  was  notified  of  the  General  Assembly's  action  in 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  281 

regard  to  Union  Seminary  by  a  letter  from  Dr.  Wil- 
liam H.  Roberts,  its  Stated  Clerk.  Thereupon,  after 
leading  directors  had  given  utterance  to  their  strong 
convictions  of  right  and  duty  in  the  case,  the  following 
paper  was  adopted : 

The  Board  of  Directors  of  the  Union  Theological  Semi- 
nary in  the  city  of  New  York,  addressed  a  memorial  to  the 
General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United 
States  of  America,  which  met  at  Portland,  May  19,  1892. 
In  that  paper  we  stated,  with  the  utmost  courtesy,  some  of 
the  practical  reasons  which  render  it  necessary,  in  our  judg- 
ment, that  the  veto  power,  conceded  to  the  General  Assem- 
bly in  1870,  should  no  longer  reside  in  that  body.  The 
memorial  concluded  with  this  language :  "  There  are  other 
and  weighty  considerations  which  we  have  preferred  not  to 
urge.  While  there  exists  the  undoubted  right  of  either  party 
to  the  agreement  of  1870  to  act  alone  in  its  abrogation,  yet 
this  memorial  is  submitted  with  the  earnest  hope  that  your 
reverend  body  may  cordially  concur  with  us  in  annulling  the 
arrangement  of  1870,  thus  restoring  Union  Seminary  to  its 
former  relations  to  the  General  Assembly."  The  hope  thus 
expressed  was  disappointed.  With  no  official  notice  what- 
ever of  the  reasons  assigned  by  us,  the  answer  to  our  me- 
morial was  :  That  the  Assembly  declines  to  be  a  party  to  the 
breaking  of  the  compact  with  Union  Theological  Seminary. 
In  view  of  this  action  of  the  late  General  Assembly, 
we  are  constrained  now  to  urge  those  considerations  which  we 
had  preferred  to  reserve.     They  are  constitutional  and  legal. 

1.     The  Constitutional  Considerations. 

There  is  no  provision  whatever  in  our  charter  and  con- 
stitution for  "■  the  principle  of  Synodical  or   Assembly  super- 


282  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

vision."  The  Committees  on  Reunion  and  both  Assemblies  in 
1869  recognized  this  important  fact,  and  advised  the  intro- 
duction of  that  principle  into  the  constitution.  Upon  this 
advice  no  action  was  taken.  The  constitution  was  not  changed. 
Therefore  tlie  seminary  could  not  rightfully  give,  and  the 
Assembly  could  not  rightfully  receive  or  exercise  the  veto 
power  under  our  existing  charter  and  constitution. 

2.     The  Legal  Cmmderat'ion . 

Since  the  action  of  the  General  Assembly  at  Portland,  the 
Executive  Committee  of  our  board  has  sought  and  obtained 
the  best  legal  advice  as  to  the  point  at  issue  between  the 
seminary  and  the  Assembly.  *  This  advice  leaves  us  no 
room  to  doubt  that,  under  the  laws  of  the  State  of  New 
York,  the  agreement  of  1870  is  illegal.  We  "cannot 
abdicate   any  of   our   official  duties  in   whole  or  in  part." 

Therefore,  As  the  sole  directors  of  Union  Seminary,  we 
are  compelled  by  the  practical  considerations,  presented  in  our 
memorial,  and  by  constitutional  and  legal  considerations,  to 
maintain  our  rights  and  to  fulfil  our  chartered  obligations, 
which  can  neither  be  surrendered  nor  shared.  In  this  action 
we  regret  deeply  that  we  have  been  refused  that  concurrence 
of  the  Assembly,  which  we  respectfully  asked,  and  which 
would  have  done  much  toward  softening  the  past  and  reliev- 
ing the  present.  Obliged  to  act  alone  for  the  protection  of 
the  institution  committed  to  our  care,  and  actuated  by  sincere 
regard  for  the  highest  interests  both  of  Union  Seminary  and 
of  the  Church  we  love,  we  do  now 

Resolve,  1.  That  the  resolution  passed  by  the  board. 
May  16,  1870,  adopting  the  memorial  to  the  General  As- 
sembly of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United  States  of 
America,  which  provided  that  all  appointments  of  professors 
"  shall  be  reported   to    the    General    Assembly,  and    no    such 

*See  the  Opinion  of  James  ('.  Carter  in  Appendix  D. 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  283 

appointment  of  professor  shall  be  considered  as  a  complete 
election,  if  disapproved  by  a  majority  vote  of  the  Assembly," 
be  and  the  same  is  hereby  reconsidered  and  rescinded  ; 

Resolve,  2.  That  the  said  arrangement  between  the 
Union  Theological  Seminary  in  the  city  of  New  York,  and 
the  General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  Cluirch  in  the 
United  States  of  America  be  and  the  same  is  hereby  termi- 
nated ;  thns  reinstating  the  relations  between  the  seminary  and 
the    General    Assembly  as   they  existed  prior  to  May,  1870. 

Resolve,  3.  That  official  notice  of  this  action  be  dnly 
given  to  the  General  Assembly,  and  also  to  the  public, 
with  the  assurance  of  the  undiminished  loyalty  of  Union 
Seminary  to  the  doctrine  and  government  of  tlie  Presby- 
terian Church  in  the  United  States  of  America,  to  which 
the  directors  and  faculty  are  personally  bound  by  their 
official  vow,  and  of  our  earnest  desire  for  the  restoration  of 
our  former  relations  to  the  General  Assembly. 

The  vote  stood  10  yeas  and  1  no.  Twenty  directors  were 
present;  viz.,  Charles  Butler,  LL.D.,  President;  Rev.  Drs.  T. 
S.  Hastings,  R.  R.  Booth,  Charles  H.  Parkhurst,  S.  W.  Dana, 
Edward  L.  Clark,  C.  Cuthbert  Hall,  D.  R.  Frazer,  John 
McC.  Holmes,  J.  H.  Mcllvaine,  J.  M.  Ludlow, W.  M.  Smith; 
Messrs.  William  A.  Booth,  John  Crosby  Brown,  D.  Willis 
James,  Henry  Day,  William  E.  Dodge,  Morris  K.  Jesnp,  D. 
H.  McAlpin,  E.  ]M.  Kingsley.  The  only  negative  vote  was 
cast  by  Dr.  R.  R.  Booth. 

The  feeling  of  satisfaction  and  gratitude  caused  by 
the  action  of  the  board  was  very  profound,  both  in  the 
seminary  and  among  its  friends  throughout  the  coun- 
try. Those  especially,  who  had  taken  an  active  part 
in  the  struggle,  had   borne   the  heavy  cares  and  re- 


284  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

sponsibility  attending  it,  and  had  now  won  the  victory, 
were  scarcely  able  to  give  utterance  to  their  sense  of 
relief  or  their  joy.  I  cannot  help  quoting  the  follow- 
ing letter  by  way  of  illustration  : 

New  York,  October  17,  1892. 
My  Dear  Dr.  Hastings  : 

I  have  been  so  happy  since  the  last  meeting  of  the  board 
that  I  have  hardly  known  how  to  express  my  thanks.  It 
was  a  wonderfnl  triumph  and  I  feel  the  greatest  respect  for 
such  men  as  Dr.  Holmes  and  Dr.  Dana,  who  were  governed 
solely  by  their  judgment  and  what  they  deemed  to  be  right. 

But  the  one  man  who  deserv^es  the  heartiest  thanks  of  all 
interested,  is  our  honored  president.  Had  it  not  been  for 
your  marvellous  tact,  good  temper  and  great  ability,  the 
results  which  have  been  accomplished  could  never  have 
been  reached.  I  sincerely  congratulate  you  and  thank  you 
with  all  my  heart. 

I  trust  now  you  will  rest  and  gain  strength.  The  victory 
is  won  and  we  have  nothing  more  to  say.  I  have  read 
with  great  interest  the  reports  in  the  papers  this  morning 
and  think  them  admirable. 

Very  sincerely  your  friend, 

D.  Willis  James. 
To  Rev.  Thomas  S.  Hastings,  D.  D. 

{d)  A  gift  explaining  and  crowning  the  vote. 

At  the  next  meeting  of  the  board,  on  November  8, 
1892,  the  following  letter  was  received : 

To  Charles  Butler,  Esq.,  President  of  the  Board  of 
Directors  of  the  Union  Theological  Seminary 
IN  the  city  of  New  York. 

Dear  Sir  : — Inasmuch  as  the  Union  Theological  Semi- 
nary has  resumed  the  position  intended  by  its  founders,  its 
charter,  and  its  constitution,  we  desire  to    express  our  hearty 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OE  ITS  HISTORY.  285 

approval  of  the  principle  of  its  management  by  its  own 
Board  of  Directors,  and  also  our  confidence  that  its  aifairs 
will  be  so  administered  as  best  to  promote  the  spiritual  life 
and  growth  of  its  students  and  of  the  Presbyterian  Church, 
of  which  we  are  members.  Therefore,  in  order  that  the 
seminary  may  be  placed  on  a  sound  financial  basis  by  a 
substantial  addition  to  its  general  fund,  and  by  the  comple- 
tion of  the  endowments  of  its  professorship  funds,  we  take 
great  pleasure  in  presenting  to  you,  without  conditions,  the 
sum  of  $175,000.  We  remain, 

John  Crosby  Brown,  W.  E.  Dodge, 

D.  Willis  James,  Morris  K.  Jesup. 

The  following  extract  from  a  leading  article  of  the 
New  York  Sun,  November  17,  1892,  will  show  how 
the  signers  of  this  letter  are  regarded  in  the  com- 
munity at  large : 

Four  of  the  members  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the 
Union  Theological  Seminary  have  made  an  unconditional 
gift  of  $175,000  to  the  general  fund  of  the  institution. 
They  are  Mr.  D.  Willis  James,  Mr.  William  E.  Dodge,  Mr. 
John  Crosby  Brown  and  Mr.  Morris  K.  Jesup,  and  the 
purpose  of  their  benefaction  is,  to  express  emphatically  their 
sympathy  with  the  course  of  the  seminary  in  separating 
itself  from  the  Presbyterian  General  Assembly,  in  order  that 
it  may  be  undisturbed  in  its  theological  teachings.  All 
these  four  gentlemen  are  Presbyterians  of  such  distinction 
that  they  are  known  to  their  own  communion  and  to  the 
public  generally  throughout  the  United  States.  They  are 
Presbyterians  by  inheritance,  and  a  few  years  ago  if  we  had 
been  called  upon  to  select  four  laymen  in  New  York  more 
especially  representative  of  the  conservative  character  of  that 
denomination,   theirs   are   the   names   which   would   have  oc- 


286  '^^E    UNION    THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

curred  to  us  first.  All  of  them,  too,  are  men  of  great 
wealth  and  of  high  standing  in  business  and  financial  circles 
and  in  the  society  of  New  York.  For  many  years  they 
have  been  liberal  promoters  of  the  religious  and  charitable 
institutions  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  and  their  loyalty  to 
its  faith  and  doctrine  has  never  been  questioned  until 
recently.  Coming  from  strict  Presbyterian  families,  it  is 
probable  that  all  of  them  were  carefully  instructed  in  the 
Westminster  Catechism  in  their  youth,  and  all  of  them  have 
remained  devout  and  influential  members  of  leading  Presby- 
terian churches  of  the  city  since  that  time. 

{e)  Sequel  to  the  annulling  of  the  agreement  of  1870. 
Action  of  the  General  Assembly  of  1893  7'elating  to  the 
Union  Theological  Seminary. 

Although  the  annulling  of  the  agreement  of  1870 
closed  all  further  controversy  on  the  part  of  the  Board 
of  Directors,  it  by  no  means  ended  discussion  of  the 
subject,  both  in  the  religious  papers  unfriendly  to 
Union  Seminary,  and  also  in  the  General  Assembly. 
Nor  did  it  end  vigorous  effort  on  the  part  of  the  Assem- 
bly, through  two  of  its  committees,  to  bring  about  a 
settlement  of  the  trouble.  This  appears  most  clearly 
in  the  proceedings  of  the  General  Assembly,  which 
met  at  Washington,  D.  C,  on  May  18,  1893.  The 
report  of  the  Committee  on  Theological  Seminaries, 
along  with  the  sj^eeches  accompanying  it,  show  very 
distinctly  the  final  attitude  and  temper  of  the  General 
Assembly  toward  Union  Seminary.  The  Eev.  Dr. 
John  Dixon,  chairman  of  the  committee,  on  June  1st, 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  287 

presented  the  report.     The  part  bearing  upon  Union 
Seminary  was  as  follows  : 

From  Union  Seminary  has  been  received  the  nsual  re- 
port. The  Board  of  Directors  have  also  sent  a  special 
communication  which  is  as  follows  : 

[This  special  communication,  announcing  the  action  of 
the  Board  of  Directors  of  Union  Seminary,  annulling  the 
agreement  of  1870,  has  been  given  already  and  need  not 
here  be  repeated.] 

COMMITTEE    ON    ARBITRATION. 

To  your  committee  was  also  referred  the  report  of  the 
committee  appointed  by  the  last  General  Assembly  as  arbi- 
trators with  Union  Seminary. 

To  THE  General  Assembly  at  Washington,  D.  C. 

The  committee  consisting  of  five  members,  appointed  by 
the  General  Assembly  at  Portland,  in  1892,  "as  arbitrators, 
to  meet  a  like  number  selected  by  the  directors  of  Union 
Seminary,"  with  power  to  select  five  others,  to  which  was 
referred  for  settlement  the  difference  of  interpretation  of  the 
theological  compact  of  1870,  as  to  the  question  whether  the 
transfer  of  a  professor  from  one  chair  to  another  in  the  same 
seminary  is  an  appointment,  and  tlierefore  subject  to  veto  by 
the  General  Assembly,  respectfully  submits  the  following 
report : 

On  July  10,  1892,  the  Stated  Clerk  A)f  the  General  As- 
sembly notified  the  Board  of  Directors  of  Union  Seminary 
of  the  appointment  of  arbitrators  who  were  to  confer  with 
said  board,  and  on  August  4,  1892,  the  chairman  of  this 
committee  communicated  the  action  of  the  General  Assembly 
in  regard  to  the  a]3))ointment  of  arbitrators  and  the  duties 
assigned  them,  to  Mr.  E.  M.  Kingslev,  the  secretary  or  re- 
corder of  the  Board  of  Directors  of  Union  Seminary,  and 
received  from  him  a  re])ly  dated  August  6,  1892,  in  which 
he  stated  in  substance  that  it  would  be  impracticable  for  the 
Board  of  Directors  to  meet  and  take  any  action  on  the  sub- 
ject before  the  middle  of  October. 

In  view  of  this  statement  the  chairman  of  the  Assembly's 
committee  called  a  meetintr  of   the  committee  to    be    held    in 


288  'THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL    SEMINARY. 

New  York  City,  November  2,  1892,  and  all  the  members 
were  present  at  a  meeting  held  in  New  York  at  that  time. 
A  communication  was  sent  by  the  committee  to  the  Board 
of  Directors  of  Union  Seminary,  informing  them  of  the  com- 
mittee's presence  in  New  York  City,  and  saying,  "  It  will 
be  pleased  to  receive  such  communication  as  you  may  see  fit 
to  send  it ;  or  to  meet  your  board  or  a  sub-committee  from 
it,  in  personal  interview  at  such  time  and  place  as  you  may 
indicate." 

The  receipt  of  this  communication  was  acknowledged  by 
the  president  of  the  board,  and  on  the  8th  of  November, 
1892,  your  committee  received  a  communication  from  the 
Board  of  Directors  of  Union  Seminary,  in  which  they  say  : 
"Since  the  meeting  of  the  General  Assembly  at  Portland,  hy 
an  almost  unanimous  vote  —  a  vote  of  19  to  1 — this  board 
has  rescinded  the  resolution  of  1870,  adopting  the  memorial 
to  the  General  Assembly,  in  which  a  veto  on  the  election  of 
professors  was  offered  to  that  body,  thus  terminating  the 
special  relation  then  constituted  between  the  General  Assem- 
bly and  Union  Seminary.  By  this  action  the  question 
whether  a  transfer  is  an  election  and  subject  therefore  to  the 
Assembly's  veto,  is  no  longer  to  us  an  open  question.  There- 
fore no  further  action  in  this  matter  is  called  for." 

As  your  committee  was  appointed  to  arbitrate  a  single 
question  at  issue  between  the  General  Assembly  and  the 
Board  of  Directors  of  Union  Seminary,  and  the  foregoing 
action  of  the  Board  of  Directors,  taken  as  we  understand  on 
the  13th  of  October,  1892,  without  waiting  for  a  conference 
with  the  Assembly's  committee,  shows  that  the  board  has 
declined  to  have  the  question  at  issue  arbitrated,  your  com- 
mittee asks  to  be  discharged. 

The  chairman  of  the  committee.  Rev.  T.  Ralston  Smith, 
D.D.,  and  George  Junkin,  Esq.,  LL.D.,  are  both  absent  from 
the  country. — Dr.  Smith  as  a  delegate  from  the  General  As- 
sembly to  the  Free  Church  of  Scotland  and  Mr.  Junkin  for 
the  benefit  of  his  health, — and  therefore  their  names  are  not 
subscribed  to  this  report. 

B.  L.  Agnew, 
Logan  C.  Murray, 

E.  W.  C.  HUMPHRF.Y. 

To  the  special  communication  from  the  directors  of  Union 
Seminary  your  committee  have  given  careful  and  prolonged 
consideration.  While  they  would  recommend  the  Assembly 
to  recognize  the  fact,  that  the   directors    of  Union    Seminary 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  289 

have  declared  upon  their  own  motion  and  authority  that  the 
compact  of  1870  is  void  and  of  unbinding  effect;  and  Avhile 
insisting  that  such  action  is  wholly  without  warrant,  yet  they 
advise  the  Assembly  for  the  present  simply  to  place  on 
record,  by  way  of  protest,  its  views  of  the  situation. 

For  twenty-one  years  the  most  cordial  relations  existed 
between  Union  Theological  Seminary  and  the  General  As- 
sembly. In  the  discharge  of  what  seemed  its  plain  but  most 
painful  duty,  the  General  Assembly  at  Detroit  declared  its 
disapproval  of  the  appointment  of  Professor  Briggs  to  the 
chair  of  Biblical  Theology.  The  Board  of  Directors,  instead 
of  removing  Dr.  Briggs,  or  at  least  requiring  him  to  desist 
from  teaching  in  the  seminary,  until  the  question  at  issue 
between  the  Assembly  and  the  seminary  as  to  the  full  and 
proper  compact  had  been  decided,  resolved  to  continue  Dr. 
Briggs  in  the  chair  which  the  Assembly  had  declared  he 
ought  not  to  occupy.  This  action  was  the  more  questionable 
because  the  Assembly  appointed  a  committee  of  fifteen  to 
confer  with  the  directors  of  the  Union  Theological  Seminary 
in  regard  to  the  relation  of  the  said  seminary  to  the  General 
Assembly.  This  conference  resulted  in  practical  failure  to 
remove  the  jjiisunderstanding,  and  it  was  so  reported  to  the 
Assembly  of  1892,  meeting  in  Portland.  That  Assembly 
appointed  five  arbitrators  to  meet  a  like  number  selected  by 
the  directors  of  Union  Seminary,  with  power  to  select  five 
others  to  determine  the  interpretation  of  the  compact,  viz. 
as  to  the  transfer  of  a  professor.  The  Stated  Clerk  of  the 
Assembly  notified  the  directors  of  the  seminary  on  July  16, 
1892,  that  the  Assembly  had  appointed  such  a  Committee  of 
Arbitration.  On  the  11th  of  August  Dr.  T.  Ealston  Smith, 
chairman  of  the  committee,  addressed  a  similar  communica- 
tion to  the  directors.  To  this  the  recorder  of  the  board  re- 
sponded that  the  board  could  not  take  any  action  before  the 


290  ^^^    UNION   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

middle  of  October.  On  the  15th  of  October  the  Board  of 
Directors  met  and  resolved  to  terminate  the  compact.  This 
action  was  taken  nearly  three  months  after  the  board  had 
been  officially  informed  of  the  appointment  of  a  Committee 
of  Arbitration,  and  before  any  opportunity  was  given  to  the 
committee  of  the  General  Assembly  to  present  their  case. 
This  extraordinary  action  of  the  Board  of  Directors  is  inex- 
plicable to  the  Assembly.  The  high  character  of  the  gentle- 
men composing  the  board,  fully  warranted  the  expectation 
that  so  fair  a  proposition  as  that  of  arbitration  would  not  be 
treated  in  such  a  way. 

While  there  remained  to  the  Assembly  the  hope  that  by 
a  conference  of  arbitration  the  difficulty  that  had  arisen 
would  be  removed,  the  Assembly  did  not  think  it  best  to 
discuss  the  points  raised  by  the  directors  of  the  Union  Semi- 
nary, in  attempted  justification  of  their  action.  But  now 
the  Assembly  takes  issue  with  the  statement  made  in  the 
memorial  presented  to  the  Portland  Assembly,  that  "  there 
existed  the  undoubted  right  of  either  party  to  the  agreement 
of  1870  to  act  alone  in  its  abrogation."  No  such  right  is 
expressed  in  the  agreement,  and  in  the  nature  of  things  no 
agreement  where  valuable  interests  are  involved,  not  to  say 
valuable  considerations  are  given  and  received,  can  in  good 
morals  be  abrogated  by  one  party  to  the  agreement,  without 
the  consent  and  against  the  expressed  desire  of  the  other 
party. 

The  claim  that  the  words  of  Dr.  Musgrave,  spoken  in  the 
Old  School  Assembly  of  1869,  and  quoted  by  the  directors 
in  their  memorial  to  the  Portland  Assembly  give  warrant  to 
either  party  to  abrogate  the  agreement,  is  not  in  accordance 
with  a  proper  understanding  of  those  words.  The  "  declara- 
tion "  referred  to  by  Dr.  Musgrave,  was  not  a  compact  or 
covenant   as   one    of  the    terms   of  reunion.       The     relation 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  291 

of  the  seminaries  to  the  Assembly  was  a  different  problem. 
The  arrangement  in  the  "declaration"  he  Avas  discussing, 
proved  to  be  unacceptable  to  Union  Seminary  and  was  not 
adopted.  The  following  j'ear,  Union  Seminary  came  to  the 
Assembly  with  a  memorial,  setting  forth  an  arrangement 
which  was  accepted  by  the  Assembly  and  agreed  to  by  all 
the  seminaries.  This  is  the  compact  or  arrangement  not 
discussed  by  Dr.  Musgrave  in  1869,  which  Union  Seminary 
has  declared  on  its  own  motion  that  it  has  abrogated.  What- 
ever force  the  constitutional  and  legal  objections  may  have 
to  the  making  and  continuance  of  such  a  compact  by  tlije 
directors,  there  was  an  easy  and  simple  way  to  remove  them 
if  the  directors  so  desired.  The  Legislature  of  the  State  of 
New  York  would  doubtless  have  amended  the  charter  if  the 
members  had  requested  it. 

Because,  then,  of  the  strange  and  unwarranted  action  of 
the  directors  in  retaining  Dr.  Briggs  after  his  appointment 
had  been  disapproved  by  the  Assembly;  and  because  of  the 
refusal  by  the  directors  to  arbitrate  the  single  point  in  dis- 
pute between  the  iVssembly  and  the  board  ;  and  because  of 
the  attempt  of  the  board  on  its  own  motion  and  against  the 
expressed  desire  of  the  Assembly  to  abrogate  the  compact  of 
1870,  the  Assembly  disavows  all  responsibility  for  the  teach- 
ing of  Union  Seminary,  and  declines  to  receive  any  report 
from  its  board  until  satisfactory  relations  are  established. 
The  Assembly,  however,  cherishes  the  hope,  and  Avill  cor- 
dially welcome  any  effort  to  bring  Union  Seminary  into  such 
a  relationship  with  itself  as  will  enable  the  Assembly  to  com- 
mend the  institution  again  to  students  for  the  ministry. 

Your  committee  would  further  recommend  that  the  Board 
of  Education  be  enjoined  to  give  aid  to  such  students  only 
as  may  be  in  attendance  upon  seminaries  approved  by  the 
Assembly. 


292  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

Your  committee  would  also  recommeud  that  the  re-elec- 
tion of  the  Rev.  Charles  A.  Briggs,  D.D.,  by  the  Presbytery 
of  New  York  as  a  director  of  the  German  Theological  Semi- 
nary at  Bloomfield,  N.  J.,  be  disapproved  by  this  Assembly. 

The  reasons  assigned  in  this  report  why  the  Assem- 
bly disavowed  all  responsibility  for  the  teaching  of 
Union  Seminary,  and  declined  to  receive  any  report 
from  its  board,  along  with  the  recommendation  that 
the  Board  of  Education  be  enjoined  to  give  no  aid  to 
its  students — in  other  words,  to  "  l)oycott  "  it — were 
regarded  by  the  venerable  president  and  the  other 
directors,  by  the  entire  faculty,  and  by  friends  of  the 
seminary  through  the  world,  as  a  very  great  wrong, 
not  only  to  the  institution  itself  but  to  fundamental 
principles  of  American  Presbyterianism,  to  the  cause 
of  a  reasonable  theological  liberty,  and  to  the  entire 
Christian  scholarship  of  the  country. 

In  concluding  the  account  of  this  unhappy  conflict 
between  the  General  Assembly  and  the  Union  Theo- 
logical Seminary  it  is  only  fair  to  say  further,  that  in 
all  the  official  records  of  the  action  of  the  directors  in 
the  case  I  have  not  found  a  single  word,  or  expression, 
unbecoming  their  sacred  trust  or  the  character  of 
Christian  gentlemen. 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  293 


CHAPTER    VI. 

BEARING   OF    THE    CONFLICT     WITH     THE    GENARAL    AS- 
SEMBLY   UPON    THE    QUESTION    OF     ECCLESIASTICAL 

CONTROL    OF    THEOLOGICAL    SEMINARIES. LESSONS 

TAUGHT       BY      THIS      CONFLICT      RESPECTING       THE 
DESIGN    OF     UNION     SEMINARY     AND     THE    MOTIVES 

OF    ITS    FOUNDERS. HOW    THE   CHARTER  FITS  INTO 

AND    SERVES    THE    DESIGN. 

Before  concluding  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  add  a  few 
words  about  the  bearing  of  the  conflict  I  have  described 
upon  the  general  question  of  ecclesiastical  control  of 
theological  seminaries ;  and  also  to  point  out  some  of 
its  lessons  in  regard  to  the  special  design  of  the  Union 
Seminary. 

(a)  Is  direct  ecclesiastical  control  essential  to  the 
effidency,  sound  teaching  and  usefulness  of  a  theological 
institution  f 

If  the  answer  to  this  question  were  based  upon  the 
position  maintained  by  nearly  the  whole  body  of  the 
ojDponents  of  Dr.  Briggs,  who  had  been  trained  in  the 
Old  School  branch  of  the  Church,  it  would  be  an 
emphatic  yea.  I  do  not  recall  an  instance  in  which  one 
of  them  recognized  the  fact,  that  for  a  third  of  a  cen- 
tury Union  Seminary  was  under  no  ecclesiastical  con- 
trol whatever.  They  seemed  to  shut  their  eyes  to  this 
fact  as  not  of  the  slightest  importance.     And  also  to 


294  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEJ/INIA' ): 

the  fact  that  the  New  School  branch  of  the  Church,  to 
which  the  seminary  belonged,  never  attempted,  or 
desired,  to  exercise  any  authority  over  it,  or  over  the 
other  institutions  where  Presbyterian  ministers  were  in 
training. 

In  taking  this  ground  with  regard  to  Union  Semin- 
ary there  was  no  thought  of  casting  any  censure  upon 
seminaries  founded  upon  a  different  j)lan  and  in  differ- 
ent circumstances.  Individuality  is  an  element  of  ut- 
most importance  in  the  life  of  institutions,  as  well  as  in 
personal  and  national  life.  Unity  in  diversity  is  a 
fundamental  law  of  the  Providential  system  ;  unity  in 
essence  and  spirit,  endless  diversity  of  outward  form 
and  manifestation.  It  is  so  in  j^oetry  and  painting  and 
all  the  other  grand  spheres  of  art ;  why  should  it  not 
be  so  in  the  great  sphere  of  learning  and  divinity? 
Institutions  of  lasting  power  grow ;  they  cannot  be 
improvised  or  manufactured.  How  little,  for  examjjle, 
of  the  vast  and  beneficent  influence  of  Princeton,  as  a 
theological  institution,  has  been  the  product  of  mere 
ecclesiastical  control  ?  The  hiding-place  of  that  influ- 
ence has  been  not  in  the  supervision  or  in  the  votes 
and  deliverances  of  the  General  Assembly,  but  in  the 
minds  and  hearts  and  learning  and  enlightened  piety 
and  inspiring  memories  of  Archibald  Alexander,  Samuel 
Miller,  Charles  Hodge,  Addison  Alexander,  and  others 
like  them.  And  how  little  the  best  possible  ecclesiasti- 
cal supervision  would  have  added  to  what  such  scholars 
and  men  of  God  as  Edward    Pobinson,    Thomas  II. 


ANOTHER  DECADE  OF  ITS  HISTORY.  295 

Skinner,  Henry  B.  Smith,  W.  G.  T.  Sliedd,  William 
Adams,  Roswell  D.  Hitchcock  and  Philip  Schaff  did 
to  make  Union  Seminary  a  fountain  of  spiritual  light 
and  benediction  to  our  country  and  to  the  world  !  No 
ecclesiastical  authority  supervised  its  birth  or  controlled 
it  during  the  first  third  of  a  century  of  its  existence. 
And  yet  the  New  School  Presbyterian  Church,  as  I 
have  said  before,  cherished  Union  as  one  of  her  most 
precious  jewels,  and  delighted  to  honor  it  by  choosing 
from  its  professors  several  Moderators  of,  her  General 
Assembly.  Annual  collections'were  taken  in  some  of 
her  wealthiest  congregations  for  their  worldly  support. 
I  was  jDrivileged  to  be  the  pastor  of  one  of  these  con- 
gregations ;  a  third  of  the  first  endowment  of  the  sem- 
inary was  its  free  gift ;  and  yet  I  never  heard  a  whisj^er 
even,  that,  in  addition  to  the  control  of  its  Board  of 
Directors,  it  ought  also  to  be  under  the  control  of  the 
General  Assembly. 

Let  me  now  note  some  important  lessons  taught  the 
friends  of  Union  Seminary  by  its  struggle  with  the 
Assembly — lessons  which  ought  to  be  marked,  learned 
and  inwardly  digested.  Conflict,  when  based  upon  good, 
solid  reasons  and  inspired  by  the  right  spirit,  is  one 
of  the  most  potent  educating  forces  in  the  world.  It 
tends  to  awaken,  stimulate  and  call  into  play  dormant 
or  latent  capabilities.  It  drives  men  back  into  them- 
selves, acquaints  them  with  the  full  meaning  of  things, 
helps  them  to  understand  better  their  own  real  aims  and 
ends,  widens  their  outlook,  and  so  trains  them  to  wise 


296  T^HE   UNION    THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

and  successful  action.  Our  country,  even  while  I 
write,  is  furnishing  a  wonderful  illustration  of  this 
truth. '='  A  long,  trying  conflict  of  jniblic  opinion  about 
our  relations  and  duty,  as  a  nation,  to  the  island  of 
Cuba  has  of  a  sudden  ended  in  a  terrible  conflict  of 
arms  far  off"  on  the  other  side  of  the  globe.  How  fast 
it  is  educating  the  American  j^eople  to  a  distinct  con- 
sciousness of  their  providential  calling  and  mission  as 
a  world-power !  What  an  eye-opener  it  has  been  to 
them  touching  their  possible  duty  as  a  leader  in  the 
glorious  march  of  Christian  civilization,  freedom  and 
humanity  !  Dewey's  victory  at  Manila  has  all  at  once 
set  the  "  universal  Yankee  nation  "  not  only  to  a  dili- 
gent study  of  the  geograj^hy  of  the  Phillipines,  but  to 
deep  pondering  of  coming  events  throughout  the 
farthest  Orient  that  already  cast  their  shadows  before. 
To  return  to  the  conflict  between  Union  Seminary 
and  the  General  Assembly.  What  useful  lessons  it  has 
taught  thousands  of  Christian  men  and  women,  both 
in  and  outside  the  Presbyterian  Church  !  Including 
the  "  Briggs  case,"  it  has  taught  them  more  than  in  all 
their  lives  they  had  known  before  about  theological 
seminaries.  Biblical  study  and  learning,  "  higher 
criticism,"  and  the  close  connection  of  all  these  with 
human  life  and  progress.  But  in  referring  to  the 
lessons  of  this  conflict  I  had  in  mind  those  chiefly 
which  specially  concern  the  friends  and  guardians  of 
Union  Seminary.     It  almost  shames  me  to    compare 

*  This  was  written  in  May,  1898. 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  297 

what  I  knew  about  the  far-reaching  design  of  the  in- 
stitution when  the  conflict  began  Avith  what  I  know  to- 
day ;  and,  doubtless,  my  own  experience  is  not  at  all 
singular,  Wliat  then,  interj^reted  in  the  light  of  its 
recent  struggle,  was  the  design  of  the  founders  of  Union 
Theological  Seminary  in  the  city  of  New  York  ?  That 
they  themselves  regarded  it  as  of  the  very  highest 
importance  is  evident  from  the  opening  sentence  of  the 
preamble  to  their  plan.     Here  it  is  : 

That  the  design  of  the  founders  of  the  seminary  may  he 
publicly  knoivn  and  be  sacredly  regarded  by  the  directors,  and 
professors  and  students,  it  is  judged  proper  to  make  the  fol- 
lowing jjreliminary  statement. 

Let  US  look  closely  at  this  statement  and  consider 
well  its  weighty  clauses.  And,  first  of  all,  it  tells  us 
that, 

{b)   The  design  of  the  founders  of  Union   Seminary 

was  WORLD-WIDE. 

A  number  of  Christians,  both  clergymen  and  laymen,  in 
the  cities  of  New  York  and  Brooklyn,  deeply  impressed 
with  the  claims  of  the  world  upon  the  Church  of  Christ  to 
furnish  a  competent  supply  of  well-educated  and  pious  min- 
isters of  the  Gospel,  resolved,  in  humble  dependence  on  the 
grace  of  God,  to  attempt  the  establishment  of  a  theological 
seminary  in  the  city  of  New  York. 

Its  founders  were  a  number  of  Christians,  both 
clergymen  and  laymen;  and  their  attempt  was  not 
merely  in  response  to  the  claims  of  the  Presbyterian 


298  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

denomination,  or  of  tlieir  own  country,  but  of  all 
nations.  How  vast,  even  unto  the  ends  of  the  earth, 
was  their  spiritual  outlook  !  From  what  a  vantage- 
ground  and  in  what  an  exalted  mood  they  contempla- 
ted *'  the  claims  of  the  world  upon  the  Church  of 
Christ  "  !  A  new  Acts  of  the  Apostles  could  not  open 
more  fittingly.  There  is  not  a  touch  of  sectarianism  ; 
not  a  sectarian  note.  And  all  that  follows  is  in  full 
accord  with  this  beginning. 

(c)  The  design  of  the  founders  of  Union  Seminary 
was  comprehensive,  generous  and  ideal  in  the  breadth 
and  completeness  of  its  plan. 

"  In  this  institution  it  is  the  design  of  the  founders  to 
furnish  the  means  of  a  full  and  thorough  education  in 
all  the  subjects  taught  in  the  best  theological  semi- 
naries in  this  or  other  countries."  Such  was  their 
language ;  and  just  that,  I  do  not  doubt,  was  in  the 
mind  of  Erskine  Mason,  when  after  much  thought  and 
consultation,  he  conceived  and  thus  defined  the  plan. 
It  is  the  language  of  wisdom,  foresight  and  strong  con- 
victions touching  the  liigh  office  of  Christian  learning 
and  scholarship.  One  is  surprised,  to  be  sure,  to  hear 
such  words  at  that  day  from  a  modest  young  Presby- 
terian minister.  But  Erskine  Mason's  father,  the 
renowned  John  M.  Mason — whose  sermon  at  Bristol  on 
Messiah's  kingdom,  is  said  to  have  wrung  from  Robert 
Hall  the  exclamation  :  "  I  can  never  jireach  in  that 
pulpit  again  !" — was  an  intimate  friend  of  Alexander 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OE  ITS  HISTORY.  299 

Hamilton,  and  not  wholly  unlike  Hamilton  in  states- 
manlike sagacity.  The  son  inherited  the  spirit  of  the 
father,  "  Nothing,  my  brethren,  is  great  in  this  world 
but  the  kingdom  of  Jesus  Christ ;  nothing  but  that  to 
a  spiritual  eye,  has  an  air  of  permanency."  This 
grand  sentiment,  uttered  in  one  of  his  sermons,  seems 
to  have  inspired  him  in  setting  forth  the  design  of  the 
new  school  of  divinity. 

How  beautiful  is  such  aspiring,  prophetic  thought, 
united,  as  it  was  here,  with  such  practical,  e very-day 
wisdom,  good  sense  and  piety !  "A  full  and  thorough 
education  ;"  what  does  that  mean  ?  It  means  that  the 
young  men  trained  in  this  seminary  are  to  be  genuine 
scholars,  putting  their  whole  mind  and  soul  and 
strength  into  their  studies.  They  are,  each  in  his 
measure  and  all  together,  as  far  as  possible,  to  become 
accurate,  conscientious,  self-centered  and  able  to 
teach  others  also,  in  their  knowledge  of  the  Hebrew 
and  Greek  Scriptures,  of  the  old  English  Bible,  of  the 
history  of  the  Christian  Church,  life  and  doctrine,  and 
of  every  other  branch  of  theological  instruction  and 
science  needful  to  render  them  thoroughly  furnished 
for  effective,  fruitful  labor  in  the  varied  service  of  the 
blessed  Master,  whether  at  home  or  abroad.  That  is 
the  aim  of  the  institution,  "  hi  all  the  subjects 
taught  in  the  best  theological  seminaries  in  this  or  other 
countries^  Why  not?  Shall  American  students  in 
New  York,  who  follow  Christ  and  are  prejDaring  for 
the  ministry  of  His  Gospel,  be  in  their  advantages  one 


300  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

whit  behind  students  of  divinity  at  Oxford  and  Cam- 
bridge, or  at  Halle  and  Leipsic  and  Berlin  ?  Ought 
they  not  to  have  as  good  a  theological  education  as 
Christendom  affords? 

So  much  on  the  intellectual  side ;  but  this  is  not  all. 
Here  is  the  design  of  the  founders  on  the  practical  side  : 

Being  fully  persuaded  that  vital  godliness,  a  thorough 
education,  and  practical  training  in  the  works  of  benevolence 
and  pastoral  labor,  are  all  essential  to  meet  the  wants  and 
promote  the  best  interests  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ,  the 
founders  of  this  seminary  design  that  its  students,  remaining 
under  pastoral  influence,  and  performing  the  duties  of  church 
members  in  the  several  churches  to  Avhich  they  belong,  or 
with  which  they  worship,  in  prayer-meetings,  in  the  instruc- 
tion of  Sabbath-schools  and  Bible  classes,  and  being  conver- 
sant with  all  the  benevolent  efforts  of  the  present  day  in  this 
great  community,  shall  have  the  opportunity  of  addhuj  to 
solid  learning  and  true  jiiety  the  teachings  of  experience. 

{d)  The  hope  mid  expectation  of  the  founders  in  the 
carrying  out  of  their  sacred  design. 

By  the  foregoing  advantages  the  founders  hope  and  ex- 
pect with  the  blessing  of  God  to  call  forth  and  enhst  in  the 
service  of  Christ  and  in  the  work  of  the  ministry  genius, 
talent,  enlightened  piety  and  missionary  zeal ;  and  to  qualify 
many  for  the  labors  and  management  of  the  various  religious 
institutions,  seminaries  of  learning,  and  enterprises  of  benev- 
olence which  characterize  the  present  time. 

This  seems  to  me  a  remarkal)le  i^assage.  What  does 
itsav?  It  savs  that  in  lavinii'  their  plans  foi-  a  tlioo- 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  gQl 

logical  seminary  as  good  as  could  be  found  in  the  wide 
world,  their  first  hope  and  expectation  was  to  call 
forth  and  enlist  in  the  service  of  Christ  and  in  the 
work  of  the  ministry  genius.  It  is  a  strange  word  to 
use  here  ;  there  is  no  other  quite  like  it ;  and  yet  how 
fitting  and  in  its  right  place  is  the  word  !  Genius  is 
something  far  deeper  and  higher  than  talent ;  it  is  in- 
spiration and  creative  power  ;  in  the  religious  sphere, 
especially,  it  is  the  enthusiasm  of  holy  intelligence, 
thought  and  j^assion  for  souls.  It  is  what  gives  talent, 
enlightened  piety  and  missionary  zeal,  resistless  energy. 
All  great  theologians,  j)reachers,  evangelists  and  saints 
have  possessed  it,  or  rather  been  possessed  by  it ; 
Paul  and  John  among  the  ajDOstles ;  Augustine  and 
Chrysostom  and  Bernard ;  Luther,  Calvin,  Hooker, 
Jeremy  Taylor,  Leighton,  Bunyan,  John  Wesley, 
Jonathan  Edwards,  Eliot,  Swartz,  Brainerd,  Zeisberger, 
Livingston,  they  were  all  endued  with  the  genius  of 
faith  and  unbounded  devotion  to  Jesus  Christ ;  and, 
thank  God,  LTnion  Seminary  knows  w^ell  in  her  own 
history  what  this  sort  of  genius  is  and  can  do  ! 

ie)   The  design  of  the  founders  was  crowned  with  the 
peace  and  charitg  of  the  Gospel. 

Let  me  quote  yet  once  more  their  own  admirable 
statement : 

It  is  the  design  of  the  founders  to  provide  a  theological  semi- 
nary in  the  midst  of  the  greatest  ami  most  groiving  community  in 
America,    around   ichich   all   men   of  moderate   views   and  feel- 


302  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

ings,  who  desire  to  life  free  from  party  strife,  and  to  stand 
aloof  from  all  extremes  of  doctrinal  speculation,  practical 
radicalism,  and  ecclesiastical  domination,  MAY  CORDIALLY  AXD 

AFFECTIOXATELY   RALLY. 

(/)  The  special  fitness  of  the  charter  of  the  Union 
Theological  Seminary  to  fortify  and  carry  out  the  design 
of  its  founders. 

"  The  government  of  the  seminary  shall  at  all  times 
be  vested  in  a  Board  of  Directors."  Of  this  brief  but 
comprehensive  enactment  I  have  spoken  already.  An- 
other provision  of  the  charter  is  as  follows  : 

Equal  privileges  of  admission  and  instruction,  with  all  the 
advantages  of  the  institution,  shall  be  allowed  to  students  of  every 
denomination  of  Christians. 

There  are  some  one  hundred  and  fifty  theological 
seminaries  in  the  United  States.  As  far  as  I  have 
been  able  to  learn  there  is  not  another  among  them  all, 
whose  charter  contains  an  enactment  so  laro-e  and  2:en- 
erous  as  this.  Had  not  the  founders  of  Union  Semi- 
nary been  men  of  extraordinary  breadth  of  vision  and 
been  inspired  by  one  overmastering,  gospel-like  design, 
never  would  they  have  framed,  or  accepted,  such  a 
charter  and  organized  their  new  school  of  divinity  in 
harmony  with  its  catholic  spirit. 

[g)  A  few  words  in  conclusion. 

Before   closing   this    chapter    a    few    words    about 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  303 

schools  of  divinity  in  general  will  not  be  out  of  place. 
The  simple  fact  that  not  far  from  one  hundred  and 
fifty  such  institutions  have  grown  up  in  the  United 
States — mostly  within  the  last  half  century — may 
serve  to  show  how  highly  they  are  valued  by  the 
various  denominations  of  the  country.  They  are 
related  to  its  spiritual  interests  somewhat  as  West 
Point  and  Annapolis  stand  related  to  its  great 
military  interests.  As  the  latter  are  training  schools 
for  leaders  of  our  army  and  navy,  in  fighting  the  bat- 
tles of  the  Republic  on  sea  and  land,  so  the  theological 
seminary  is  a  training  school  for  leaders  in  the 
greater  world-wide  conflict  of  truth  with  error,  of  social 
right  with  social  wrong,  of  humanity  and  its  sweet 
charities  with  all  forms  of  vice,  cruelty  and  barbarism. 
Let  me  repeat  on  this  subject  what  I  said  to  my  old 
Mercer  street  flock  once,  when  urging  them  to  be 
generous  to  Union  Seminary  :  "  Theology  and  theo- 
logical institutions  have  something  of  the  dignity  and 
importance  which  belong  to  fundamental  principles  in 
ethics,  or  to  universal  laws  in  nature.  These  may 
vary  greatly  in  their  forms  of  working  and  of  mani- 
festation ;  but  they  themselves  are  permanent  and 
immutable.  Light,  for  example,  is  an  element  or  force 
which  conditions  all  our  seeing ;  where  there  is  no 
light,  there  can  be  no  vision  ;  yet  in  how  many  differ- 
ent ways  it  fulfils  its  kindly  office?  Truly,  the  light 
is  sweet,  and  a  pleasant  thing  it  is  for  the  eyes  to  behold 
the  sun  ;  but  it  is  pleasant  also  to  behold  the  moon  and 


304  THE   UyiON   THEOLOGICAL   SEMLWARY. 

stars,  the  clear  sky,  the  gleam  from  a  distant  home, 

the  fire  on  the  hearth. 

And  storied  Avindows,  richly  dight, 
Casting  a  dim,  religious  light. 

So  also  with  inspired  theology,  *  the  sabbath  and 
port  of  all  men's  labors  and  peregrinations,'  as  Lord 
Bacon  calls  it.  How  its  precious,  life-giving  trntli 
diffuses  itself  far  and  wide,  embodies  itself  in  song 
and  parable,  as  well  as  in  doctrine,  precept  and 
story,  irradiating  with  its  saving  grace  alike  the  souls 
of  little  children  and  the  souls  of  learned  divines  and 
philosoj)hers  ! 

'  Where  there  is  no  vision '  said  the  wise  man — and 
*  vision '  in  his  day  was  prophetic  insight  and  fore- 
sight ;  it  was  truth  revealed  first  to  the  inspired  seer, 
and  through  him,  shining  forth  uj^on  the  face  of  the 
Nation — '■where  there  is  no  vision  the  people  perish.' 
The  saying  is  for  all  time.  AVhere,  in  our  day,  there 
is  no  genuine  theology,  no  vital  science  of  God  and  His 
government  of  the  world ;  where  the  popular  mind, 
oj)inion,  literature,  domestic  and  social  habits,  business 
and  institutions  are  not  in  some  degree  informed 
and  ruled  by  its  holy,  benign  influences,  there,  sooner 
or  later,  the  people  will  perish.  This  is  at  bottom  one 
of  the  chief  reasons  of  the  sad  spectacle  which  meets 
our  eyes  as  we  survey  the  moral  state  of  Christendom; 
the  spectacle,  I  mean,  of  dead  and  dying  nations. 

Never  was  there  a  time  in  all  its  history  when 
Union  Seminary  was  summoned    to  more   strenuous 


ANOTHER  DECADE   OF  ITS  HISTORY.  305 

work,  or  had  a  better  opportunity  to  fulfil  its  noble 
office  in  teaching  and  in  training  others  to  teach  the 
truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus  than  to-day.  Never  had  it 
stronger  or  more  insj)iring  motives  to  call  forth  and 
enlist  genius,  talent  and  the  best  learning  in  carrying 
out  its  grand  design.  Some  appear  to  feel  that  as 
society  and  knowledge  advance,  and  we  draw  nearer 
to  the  millennial  ages,  the  race  of  great  theologians  is 
going  to  die  out.  But  I  cannot  think  that  the  grow- 
ing triumph  of  the  Church  is  to  be  purchased  by 
dwarfing  the  souls  of  her  teachers.  On  the  contrary, 
I  believe  the  coming  days  will  not  be  one  whit  behind 
the  best  days  of  her  history.  As  she  rises  to  greater 
heights  of  piety  and  holy  intelligence  ;  as  she  turns  her 
back  upon  the  world  and  fixes  her  expectant  eye  more 
steadily  upon  her  risen  Lord  and  Redeemer,  I  doubt 
not  she  will  be  blessed  with  preachers  and  divines 
worthy  to  have  sat  in  the  council  of  the  Apostles.  I 
doubt  not  that  Jesus  Christ  will  then  hold  in  His  right 
hand,  stars  as  resplendant  in  their  kind  and  measure 
as  any  that  ever  shone  there  in  ancient  or  modern 
times !  May  it  please  Him  to  raise  up  many  such 
preachers  and  theologians  to  be  stars  in  the  crown  of 
Union  Theological  Seminary." 

To  these  words  of  my  own,  uttered  more  than  seven 
and  forty  years  ago,  I  cannot  refrain  from  adding  the 
following  sentences  from  a  striking  letter  of  my  dearly 
beloved  old  friend.  Dr.  Thomas  H.  Skinner,  written 
to  Mr.  Norman  White,  in  Februarv,  1805  : 


306  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

There  is  not  in  the  entire  church  a  theological  school  of 
higher  promise  than  the  Union  Seminary.  New  York  is 
the  American  centre  of  every  human  interest,  secular  and 
sacred ;  and  it  is  doubtless,  since  our  Nation  is  resolved  not 
to  die,  the  centre,  prospectively,  of  the  influences  which  are, 
under  the  Divine  Will,  to  have  the  chief  control  of  the 
world's  future  history.  Not  in  Europe,  but  in  the  United 
States,  is  to  be  the  seat  of  the  Empire  of  the  East,  as 
De  Tocqueville  has  told  us;  and  no  one  can  doubt  that  our 
already  wonderful  city  is  to  be,  to  the  end  of  our  Nation's 
career,  the  imperial  locality  in  this  new  world.  A  power 
for  supreme  good, — the  dominion  of  Christianity, — cannot  be 
established  ambng  men,  of  greater  efficiency  than  a  jivst-rate 
School  of  the  Prophets,  in  New  York  City.  The  "  Mer- 
chant Princes"  of  this  metropolis  who,  with  others,  have 
undertaken  to  make  our  seminary  what  it  ought  to  be,  have 
put  their  hand  to  a  business  of  infinitely  higher  moment 
than  any  enterprise  of  trade,  real  or  conceivable ;  or  any 
other  interest  which  does  or  may  solicit  the  application  of 
their  immense  means.  I  use  no  hyperbole  in  thus  speak- 
ing ;  given  the  continuance  of  our  National  life,  and  only 
prophecy  itself  is  more  certain  of  accomplishment,  than  what 
I  have  just  predicted.  Standing  as  I  am,  upon  the  verge 
of  "  nature's  confine,"  it  would  be  presumptuous  in  me  to 
expect  to  see  its  accomplishment,  but  only  the  Nation's  death 
can  hinder  it,  and,  except  as  this  may  by  possibility  happen, 
there  are  some  living  who  will  not  die  before  they  Avill  have 
seen  it.  So  far  as  "  material "  means  are  required  for  the 
perfection  of  our  school,  it  is  already  provided  for,  virtually ; 
these  means  are  in  the  possession  of  our  friends,  in  super- 
abundance ;  and  earnestness  in  prosecuting  the  work  cannot 
but  preclude  the  possibility  of  their  not  being  applied  on  the 
largest    scale    of   liberality ;    it  cannot,  will    not,    rest   until 


ANOTHER  DECADE  OF  ITS  HISTORY.  307 

edifices,  and  books,  and  the  best  accommodations  for  stu- 
dents and  teachers,  as  far  as  they  may  be  needed,  shall  be 
supplied,  as  largely  as  the  completest  execution  of  the 
undertaking  can  require. 


part  Seconb. 

THE   CASE  OF   DR.   BRIGGS. 

ITS    BEARING    ON    THE    JUDICIAL   SYSTEM   OF 
THE  PRESBYTERIAN   CHURCH. 


DR.  R.  w.  Patterson's  views  on  the  subject,  as  expressed 

IN  letters  to   dr.  HASTINGS,  WRITTEN 
AT  THE  TIME. 


DR.   BRIGGS  AND  HIS   TRIAL   FOR  HERESY.      311 


part  Seconb. 

DR.    BRIGGS     AND    HIS    TRIAL     FOR     HERESY. SOME     OF 

ITS    LESSONS. 

The  main  design  of  the  present  volume,  as  was  stated 
at  the  outset,  is  to  give  an  account  of  the  agreement  of 
1870  between  the  Union  Theological  Seminary  and 
the  General  Assembly,  and  to  explain  the  causes  which 
led,  in  1892,  to  the  annulling  of  that  agreement  by  the 
Board  of  Directors  of  the  seminary.  In  carrying  out 
this  design,  it  has  been  necessary  to  refer  frequently  to 
the  address  of  the  Reverend  Charles  A.  Briggs,  D.D., 
on  taking  the  new  professorship  of  Biblical  Theology 
in  Union  Seminary,  and  to  the  consequent  action  of  the 
General  Assembly  at  Detroit,  vetoing  his  transfer  to 
that  chair.  It  is  only  incidentally,  therefore,  that  the 
trial  of  Dr.  Briggs  for  heresy  by  the  Presbytery  of 
New  York,  and,  later,  by  the  General  Assembly  of  the 
Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United  States  of  America, 
has  a  place  in  my  narrative.  Dr.  Briggs  was  the  oc- 
casion, though  not  the  cause,  of  the  struggle  between 
the  Assembly  and  Union  Seminary.  And  as  the  occa- 
sion— the  providential  occasion — of  this  struggle,  he 
rendered,  perhaps,  as  great  a  service  to  Christian 
scholarship  and  theological  freedom  as  in  any  other  act 
of  his  remarkable  career.     It  is  due  to  him,  therefore, 


312  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

due  likewise  to  the  claims  of  friendship  and  justice, 
that  I  should  here  put  on  record  a  brief  expression  of 
my  opinion  of  him,  as  also  of  his  trial  and  condemna- 
tion as  a  heretic. 

Charles  Augustus  Beiggs  was  born  in  the  city  of 
New  York,  January  15,  1841.  His  ancestors  on  the 
father's  side  were  English  Puritans,  and  on  the 
mother's  side,  partly  Huguenot  and  jDartly  German 
Eeformed  and  Scotch  Presbyterian ;  all  early  settlers 
of  New  York  and  the  New  England  colonies.  It 
would  be  hard  to  see  how,  naturally  or  spiritually,  he 
could  have  inherited  a  better  mixture  of  solid  qualities 
than  belong  to  these  renowned  old  stocks.  An  early 
letter,  written  by  him  to  a  younger  brother  of  his 
father,  shows  the  ancestral  spirit  that  was  in  him : 

I  am  going  back  to  school  to  prepare  for  college.  I 
intend  to  finish  Caesar  and  Virgil,  and  get  along  consid- 
erable in  Greek.  ...  I  intend  to  go  right  at  it,  when  I 
get  back  to  school,  I  am  going  in  strong.  When  I  start 
once,  I  am  going  to  finish.     My  mind  is  made  up. 

I  ain  going  in  strong;  when  I  dart  once  I  am  going  to 
finish.  There  was  the  coming  man  in  the  boy.  At 
the  age  of  sixteen  he  entered  the  University  of  Vir- 
ginia, where  he  pursued  his  studies  for  three  years. 
He  is  said  to  have  taken  much  interest  in  the  "  AVasli- 
ington  Society,"  and  to  have  been  active  in  the 
prayer  meeting,  and  the  "  Ragged  Mountain  " 
school.      In   his   second   year   at   the    University,   he 


DR.   BRIGGS  AND  HIS  TRIAL  FOR  HERESY.        313 

united  with  the  Presbyterian  church  in  Charlottes- 
ville, and  decided  to  give  himself  to  the  Christian  min- 
istry. He  was  one  of  the  founders  of  the  Young  Men's 
Christian  Association  in  the  University,  said  to  have 
been  the  first  of  these  associations  established  in  a 
college. 

The  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War,  in  1861,  cut  short  his 
course.  He  belonged  to  the  celebrated  Seventh  Kegi- 
ment  of  New  York  State  Volunteers,  and  marched  with 
it  to  the  defense  of  Washington.  In  the  same  year  he 
entered  the  Union  Theological  Seminary  to  study  for  the 
ministry.  Here  he  came  at  once  under  the  powerful 
and  inspiring  influence  of  Edward  Robinson,  Henry  B. 
Smith  and  Roswell  D.  Hitchcock.  After  his  gradua- 
tion he  became  for  several  years  his  father's  assist- 
ant and  a  hard-working,  skilful  man  of  business.  In 
1866  he  went  abroad,  accompanied  by  his  wife,  and 
spent  some  three  years  in  Germany,  mostly  at  Berlin ; 
making  vacation  trips  also  to  Italy,  France,  Russia, 
Egyj^t  and  the  Holy  Land.  In  Berlin  he  was  in  very 
close  relations  with  Dr.  Dorner,  both  as  a  jDuj^il  and  a 
friend. 

Here  is  an  extract  from  a  letter  to  Dr.  Henry  B. 
Smith,  written  at  Berlin,  in  November,  1868 : 

I  had  thought  of  sending  you  an  article  on  Biblical 
theology.  It  is  a  difficult  subject,  and  as  in  some  things,  I 
must  go  an  independent  way,  I  have  concluded  to  hold  back 
for  the  present.  It  is  one  of  my  favorite  studies.  I  have 
sometimes  thougiit  I  would  like  a   position    in   a    theological 


314  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

seminary ;  but  I  fear  I  could  do  little  more  with  the  lan- 
guages— so  little  attention  is  paid  to  exegesis  with  us — and 
I  would  not  devote  my  life  even  to  the  Biblical  languages. 
I  would  use  them  as  means  and  not  ends. 

In  another  letter  from  Berlin,  dated  January,  1867, 
he  wrote : 

We  have  religious  services  in  the  chapel  every  Sunday. 
We  take  turns  in  preaching.  Sunday  evenings  at  half  past 
seven,  we  have  a  Bible  circle  on  exactly  the  same  plan  as 
the  one  I  organized  in  New  York.  I  organized  this  here 
last  winter,  with  the  help  of  two  brethren  at  the  outset.  It 
has  become  a  great  success  and  a  standing  institution  of 
Berlin.  .  .  .  We  all  meet  on  pure  Christian  principles : 
Methodists,  Baptists,  Presbyterians,  Cougregationalists,  Eng- 
lish, Scotch  and  American;  and  there  is  entire  harmony. 

Shortly  after  returning  home.  Dr.  Briggs  accepted  a 
call  to  the  First  Presbyterian  church  of  Roseville,  New 
Jersey,  where  for  several  years  he  labored  with  marked 
devotion  and  success.  In  October,  1876,  he  was 
inaugurated  as  Davenport  professor  of  Hebrew  and 
Cognate  Languages  in  Union  Seminary.  His  inau- 
gural address  was  on  Exegetical  Theology,  and  in  this 
address  he  claimed  liberty  of  opinion  on  all  questions 
of  the   higher   criticism. 

In  November,  1890,  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the 
Union  Seminary  transferred  Dr.  Briggs  to  the  new 
chair  of  Biblical  Theology.  His  memorable  address 
upon  taking  it,  was  delivered  on  January  20,  1891. 
This  address  led,  a  few  months  later,  to  the  first  exer- 


DR.   BRIGGS  AND  HIS   TRIAL    FOR  HERESY.      315 

cise  of  the  veto  power  by  the  General  Assembly  and  to 
the  conflict  between  the  Assembly  and  Union  Seminary 
already  described.  The  subject  of  the  address  was  The 
Authority  of  Holy  Sconpture.  Dr.  Briggs  discussed  it 
without  fear,  or  favor,  and  with  great  ability. 

The  main  positions  of  the  address  were  by  no  means 
new.  Dr.  Briggs  himself  had  asserted  them  for  years 
in  his  various  writings.  But  in  this  address  he  pre- 
sented them  in"  a  somewhat  novel  form  and  with  con- 
centrated force  of  thought  and  learning.  He  pointed 
out,  too,  their  vital  relation  to  some  of  the  burning 
questions  of  the  day  ;  and  that  in  a  very  positive  tone. 
The  consequence,  naturally  enough,  was  a  violent  dis- 
turbance of  the  religious  atmosphere,  more  especially 
within  the  Presbyterian  pale.  His  treatment  of  the 
subject  offended  many  good  men  and  was  well  adapted 
to  stir  up  both  theological  and  ecclesiastical  prejudices, 
as  he  himself,  doubtless,  foresaw  would  be  the  case. 
And  then  impregnable  as  was  the  strength  of  his  main 
argument  in  favor  of  the  Church  and  the  Beason  as, 
along  with  Holy  Scripture,  fountains  or  channels  of 
divine  authority,  he  did  not,  perhaps,  sufficiently  con- 
sider how  easily,  how  almost  inevitably,  important 
points  and  distinctions,  clear  as  day  to  him,  would  be 
likely  to  puzzle  and  confuse  plain  Christian  people, 
unversed  in  the  knowledge  that  comes  of  books  and 
scholastic  studies.  Had  Dr.  Briggs'  real,  honest  mean- 
ing, born  of  his  deep  reverence  for  the  Word  of  God, 
been  as  obvious  to  other  minds  as  to  his  own,  I  feel 


316  THE   UNION  THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

quite  sure  that  the  uumber  of  his  opponents  would  have 
been  very  much  smaller  than  it  was.  In  reference  to 
one  point  in  particular  it  always  seemed  to  me  that  he 
made  a  mistake,  which  led  to  not  a  little  needless  suspi- 
cion and  misunderstanding.  I  refer  to  his  selection  of 
Dr.  Martineau  as  an  example  of  those  who,  not  finding- 
God  in  the  Scriptures  or  in  the  Church,  do  find  Him  in 
and  through  the  Keason.  If  the  example  was  to  be 
sought  within  the  bounds  of  Christendom,  no  better 
choice  could  have  been  made  than  Dr.  Martineau. 
But  in  any  case  how  much  of  what  is  best  and  most 
admirable  in  the  Avritings,  as  in  the  life  and  character, 
of  this  noble  Christain  thinker,  came  to  him  through 
the  old  English  Bible  and  the  Church,  as  well  as 
through  the  Reason.  The  power  of  reason  as  a  foun- 
tain, or  channel,  of  divine  authority  should  have  been 
illustrated,  it  appears  to  me,  by  taking  a  case  outside 
Christendom,  beyond  the  reach  of  the  Bible  or  the 
Church.  Socrates,  or  Plato,  or  even  Epictetus,  would 
have  been  a  better  example  than  Dr.  Martineau ;  oc- 
casioning far  less  theological  prejudice  and  furnishing 
a  much  stronger  illustration. 

During  the  conflict,  that  grew  out  of  his  address^ 
very  bitter  charges  were  made  against  Dr.  Briggs.  In 
consequence  of  these  charges  he  was  regarded  by  tens 
of  thousands  of  good  men  and  women  as  an  errorist  of 
the  worst  sort.  To  decry  him  as  an  enemy  of  the 
Bible  and  an  arrant  heretic  seemed  to  be  considered  by 
not  a  few  as  doing  God  service.     Was  he  really  such  a 


DR.    BRIGGS  AND  HIS   TRIAL   FOR  HERESY.      317 

man  as  his  enemies  depicted  him  ?  Or  did  they  bear 
false  witness  against  him  ?  I  might  answer  these  ques- 
tions by  giving  the  testimony  of  eminent  Christian  schol- 
ars, at  home  and  abroad,  who  knew  him  well  and  some 
of  whom  strongly  dissented  from  much  of  his  teaching 
about  the  higher  criticism.  But  I  do  not  think  that,  at 
this  late  day,  he  is  in  need  of  any  such  testimony.  He 
can  stand  securely  on  the  testimony  of  his  own  charac- 
ter, writings  and  services.  The  best  answer  to  the 
charges  brought  against  him  by  his  enemies  was  his 
whole-souled,  courageous  devotion  to  the  Divine  Master 
whom  he  loves  and  adores.  It  has  been  my  privilege 
to  enjoy  the  friendshij)  of  very  many  good,  learned  and 
true  men  at  home  and  abroad,  and  I  have  ever  counted 
Dr.  Briggs  among  them.  Those,  who  knew  him  best, 
liked  and  loved  him  best.  He  was  not,  to  be  sure, 
altogether  perfect ;  nor  did  he  ever  pretend  to  be.  He 
was,  undeniably,  very  positive  and  even  aggressive, 
both  by  constitutional  temperament  and  by  force  of 
conviction.  If  no  good  men  were  positive  and  at  times 
even  aggressive,  who  would  be  left  to  fight  the  perilous 
battles  of  truth  and  justice  in  such  a  world  as  this  ? 
Even  granting  that  Dr.  Briggs'  tone  and  manner  did 
not  always  tend  to  soften,  or  conciliate,  hostile  feeling, 
his  intense  earnestness  rather  than  any  personal  ill- 
will  was  at  fault.  I  have  rarely  known  a  man  of 
such  positive  and  strong  convictions  who  was  so  little 
obdurate  or  selfish  in  his  opinions. 

To  speak  unadvisedly,  or  very  positively,  with  one's 


318  THE   UNION  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

lips,  or  with  one's  pen,  is  no  strange  thing  in  the 
annals  of  American  Presbyterianism.  It  did  not 
come  in  with  higher  criticism.  Dr.  Briggs  did  not 
invent  it.  If  in  his  Presbyterian  days  he  sometimes 
sinned  in  tliat  line,  he  followed  the  example  of  other 
famous  Presbyterians  of  the  19th  century.  I  have 
expressed  my  honest  respect,  not  to  say  admira- 
tion, for  Dr.  Robert  J.  Breckinridge.  But  what 
shall  be  said  of  the  tone  and  manner  in  which  he  was 
wont  to  exjDress  his  mind  about  his  New  School  breth- 
ren— and,  as  for  that,  his  Old  School  brethren,  also, 
when  they  differed  with  him— in  1834, 1837-38,  at  the 
Philadelphia  Union  Convention  in  1867,  and  in  the 
General  Assembly  at  Albany  in  1868  ?  What  could 
have  been  more  provoking  than  his  biting  criticism 
upon  the  report  of  Dr.  Adams  and  Dr.  Beatty  on 
reunion — a  report  so  seasoned  with  the  meekness  of 
wisdom — j^ronouncing  it  unworthy  of  the  great  Pres- 
byterian Church  and  "  deficient  in  style,  literature, 
grammar,  and  rhetoric  from  one  end  to  the  other !  " 
The  truth  is,  that  Presbyterians,  even  if  now  and 
then  the  Lord's  "silly  people,"  as  they  have  been 
often  called,  are  also,  undeniably,  among  the  Lord's 
fighting  people.  Their  Calvinism  makes  them  bold 
and  determined,  but  it  tends  also  to  make  them 
somewhat  pugnacious,  not  to  say  domineering.  They 
hold  a  high  doctrine  of  original  and  indwelling  sin ; 
and  I  have  wondered  whether,  in  His  permissive 
will,  the  Lord  did  not,  perhaps,  allow  an  unusually 


DR.   BRIGGS  AND  HIS   TRIAL   FOR  HERESY.      319 

large  share  of  the  hitter  to  remain  in  them  in  attes- 
tation of  their  doctrine,  as  also  to  keep  down  their 
pride    of  orthodoxy. 

When  I  consider  what  were  Dr.  Briggs'  services  to 
the  Presbyterian  Church,  and  to  Christian  truth;  how 
far  they  exceeded  in  variety,  amount,  and  quality 
those  of  most  other  Presbyterian  scholars  of  his  own 
day,  at  least  in  this  country,  and  with  what  fidelity  and 
zeal  he  rendered  them,  I  am  little  in  the  mood  to  com- 
plain of  his  faults  or  to  hear  others  do  so.  At  his 
urgent  request  I  consented  to  serve  on  the  Executive 
Committee  of  the  Association  in  charge  of  the  Presby- 
tei'ian  Review,  of  which  he  was  the  principal  founder 
and  senior  editor.  He  consulted  me,  both  as  a  friend 
and  as  a  member  of  that  committee,  year  in  and  year 
out.  He  talked  to  me  with  absolute  freedom  respect- 
ing the  Revieiv,  its  policy,  his  colleagues,  and  his  own 
plans,  labors  and  trials  in  its  management.  He  was 
restrained  by  no  fear  that  anybody  would  ever  know 
what  he  said  to  me.  I  do  not  believe  he  ever  hesitated 
to  give  vent  in  my  ear  to  his  inmost  thoughts,  or 
doubts  and  suspicions  and  grievances  about  persons 
and  things,  so  far  as  he  had  any,  and  yet  as  I  now  look 
over  the  record  in  my  memory  of  those  ten  years  I  see 
nothing  dishonoring  to  Christian  scholarship  ;  nothing 
that  did  not  betoken  one,  whose  devotion  to  sound 
doctrine,  the  best  interests  of  the  Presbyterian  Church, 
the  cause  of  sacred  learning,  and,  above  all,  to  the 
King  of  Truth,  was  an  absorbing  jDassion.     Again  and 


320  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

again  I  said  to  myself,  "  How  this  man  loves  to  work 
for  his  Master  and  his  Master's  kingdom  !  " 

This  is  not  the  place  to  speak  at  length  of  Dr.  Briggs' 
trial  for  heresy  by  the  Presbytery  of  New  York  and 
by  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  Church 
in  the  United  States  of  America.  It  has  always  seemed 
to  me  a  very  sad  story,  alike  in  its  initiation,  in  its 
processes  and  incidents  and  in  its  final  issue.  I  agree 
fully  with  those — and  they  formed  a  host  of  learned, 
wise  and  good  men — who  viewed  this  trial  with  pro- 
found regret,  as  involving  not  merely  a  great  wrong 
to  Dr.  Briggs,  but  as  also  a.  heavy  blow  and  dishonor 
to  some  of  the  most  sacred  principles  of  American 
Presbyterianism.  As  to  the  rasping  tone,  style,  man- 
ner and  language  of  not  a  few  of  his  brethren,  both 
ministers  and  elders,  in  oj)posing  him  and  his  views,  it  is 
hard  to  speak  without  some  impatience.  Harsh  words, 
on  both  sides,  usually  accompany  religious  quarrels ; 
that  is  one  of  the  worst  things  about  them.  And  they 
were  often  used,  no  doubt,  in  the  Briggs  case,  as  in  all 
other  cases  of  theological  contention,  with  far  less  per- 
sonal motive  than  their  severity  seemed  to  indicate. 
The  best  men  and  women  are  temj)ted  to  indulge  in 
them  ;  and  are  apt  afterward  to  be  sorry  for  it.  Noth- 
ing is  ever  gained  for  a  good  cause  by  bitter,  angry 
words.  Still,  the  treatment  of  Dr.  Briggs,  bad  as  it 
was,  might  have  been  worse.  I  have  examined  with 
considerable  care  the  records  of  his  case  as  presented 
in  the  religious  and  secular  press,  and  in  the  official 


DR.   BRIGGS  AND  HIS   TRIAL   FOR  HERESY.      321 

proceedings  of  Presbytery  and  General  Assembly,  and 
find  that  so  far  as  the  printed  accounts  show,  much  that 
was  most  bitter  had  been  weeded  out,  and  that  what  is 
left  was  more  fair,  manly  and  of  good  report  than  I  ex- 
pected to  find  in  them.  Take,  for  example,  the  minutes 
and  reports  of  speeches  in  the  Washington  Assembly, 
when  it  had  been  solemnly  transformed  from  an  ordin- 
ary business  meeting  into  what  is  called  a  "  Court  of 
Jesus  Christ."  After  years  of  heated  conflict  and  dis- 
cussion, the  main  question  was  now  to  be  decided :  Is 
Dr.  Briggs  guilty  of  heresy  ?  Each  commissioner, 
at  the  calling  of  his  name,  rose  to  "explain  his  vote" 
and  give  his  judgment.  A  great  hush,  of  a  sudden, 
came  over  the  whole  Assembly.  It  was  a  wonderfully 
impressive  scene.  Almost  everybody  seemed  to  be 
awed  by  it,  and  a  large  number  of  the  commissioners, 
who  declared  Dr.  Briggs  guilty  of  heresy,  did  it,  appar- 
ently, not  without  regret,  in  entire  honesty,  quietly, 
and  in  the  fear  of  God.  There  were,  to  be  sure,  a 
good  many  explanations  loaded  with  partisan  feeling 
and  theological  rancor ;  one  in  particular  caused  a 
pious  shudder  to  pass  over  the  whole  vast  audience. 
When  the  name  was  called  of  a  ruling  elder,  who  had 
been  specially  prominent  in  the  organization  and  pro- 
ceedings of  the  Assembly,  he  rose  and  explained  his 
vote  by  a  charge  *  against  Dr.  Briggs  so  terrible  that 

*"  If  it  be  in  order  in  this  Presbyterian  General  Assembly,  in  this  court, 
permit  me  to  direct  your  attention  to  the  character  of  Almighty  God  and 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  for  omniscience,  veracity  and  absolute  truthfulness. 
Almighty  God  said  that  Isaiah  said  thus  and  so  ;  Dr.  Briggs  says  to  Almighty 


322  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

the  late  Kev.  Dr.  H.  M,  Storrs — a  splendid  pattern  of 
Christian  manliness — sprung  to  his  feet  and  exclaimed  : 

Mr.  Moderator  :  I  rise  to  a  point  of  order,  and  I  wish 
it  taken  down.  This  man  has  been  before  us  ;  is  the  charge 
now  made  against  him  true  ?  Is  it  veracious?  Has  Dr.  Briggs 
said  any  such  thing?  That  is  the  question,  sir.  My  point 
of  order  is  that  any  man  here  has  a  right  to  the  defence  of 
his  personal  character  against  unwarranted  statements.  This 
is  a  charge  of  blasphemy  upon  Dr.  Briggs. 

Mr.  McDougall —    It  is  that  matter  I  am  going  to  discuss. 

Dr.  Storrs — Mr.  Moderator,  before  a  man  can  say  any- 
thing of  this  sort,  he  must  locate  particular  language  and 
statement ;  otherwise  it  is  a  general  statement,  and  becomes 
an  accusation  of  blasphemy  for  which  there  is  no  pardon. 

This  is  not  pleasant  reading.  But  the  majority, 
I  repeat,  of  those  who  at  Washington  declared  Dr. 
Briggs  guilty  of  heresy,  did  it  in  a  wholly  different 
style  and  temper.  One  may  easily  respect  them  in 
spite  of  their  unwise  and  wrongful  verdict.  Indeed, 
I  go  even  further.  Some  of  them  in  explaining  their 
votes  displayed,  without  knowing  it,  fine  qualities  of 
Christian  sensibility  and  manhood.  And  along  with 
the  noble  loyalty  and  devotion  of  the  steadfast  minority 
to  Presbyterian  law,  liberty,  justice  and  truth,  these 

God,  '  Isaiah  did  not  say  so.'  Which  will  you  believe  ?  This  is  not  a  ques- 
tion of  finance,  not  a  matter  of  science,  not  a  matter  of  history  ;  but  the 
Almighty  God,  the  Eternal  Jehovah,  said  in  His  Written  Word,  in  Luke, 
in  Jol»n,  in  Romans,  that  Isaiah  said  thus  and  so ;  Dr.  Briggs  says,  '  Al- 
mighty God,  Isaiah  never  said  it ;  he  never  wrote  it ;  he  was  not  living 
wlien  it  was  written.'  This  is  not  a  formal  or  technical  question,  it  is  a 
direct  issue  as  to  the  veracity  of  the  Eternal  God." 


DR.    BRIGGS  AND   HIS    TRIAL    FOR   HERESY.      3^3 

qualities  helped  greatly  to  relieve  the  darker  aspects 
of  the  scene.  For,  at  the  best,  an  American  heresy 
trial,  like  that  of  Albert  Barnes,  or  like  those  of  Charles 
A.  Briggs  and  Henry  Preserved  Smith,  is  a  pitiable 
thing  in  the  sight  of  heaven  and  earth. 

This  is  not  the  place,  as  I  have  before  said,  to  deal 
at  length  with  the  case  of  Dr.  Briggs,  to  narrate  the 
successive  stages  and  incidents  of  his  trial,  to  state  the 
arguments  for  and  against  him,  or  to  discuss  the  bear- 
ing of  this  trial  upon  public  opinion,  both  in  and  out- 
side the  Presbyterian  Church,  in  regard  to  the  character 
and  practical  working  of  its  judicial  system.  And  yet 
the  case  was  so  full  of  impressive  lessons,  especially  on 
the  latter  point,  that  I  cannot  wholly  pass  them  over. 
Instead  of  my  own  reflections  on  the  subject,  however, 
I  will  give  those  of  a  much  wiser  man — one  of  larger 
experience  and  singularly  gifted  with  ecclesiastical  pru- 
dence. I  refer  to  the  late  R.  W.  Patterson,  D.D.,  the 
patriarch  of  American  Presbyterianism  in  the  great 
Northwest. 

While  engaged  in  writing  this  chapter  Dr.  Hastings 
put  into  my  hands  a  parcel  of  letters,  written  to  him 
by  Dr.  Patterson  during  1891-1894.  The  following 
extracts  from  these  familiar  but  weighty  letters  will 
explain  some  of  the  lessons  taught  by  the  case  of  Dr. 
Briggs,  to  which  I  have  referred. 

May  30,  1892. 
I  see  that  the  Portland  Assembly  has  decided  to  sustain  the 
appeal  of  the  committee  and  has  reversed  the  action  of  the  New 


324  ^^HE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

York  Presbytery,  but  did  not  go  on  with  the  trial  on  the 
merits.  This  last  the  only  sensible  thing  so  far.  I  am  not 
surprised,  after  witnessing  the  spirit  of  the  Assembly  at 
Detroit.  Our  judicial  system  must  be  reformed,  or  we  shall 
as  a  Church  lose  all  credit  for  decency  in  the  trial  of  men 
accused  of  heresy,  or,  indeed,  of  any  offence.  Only  think  of 
five  or  six  hundred  men  acting  as  a  court  ! 

It  seems  three  members  of  the  last  Assembly's  Commit- 
tee of  Conference  were  allowed,  as  individuals,  to  make  a 
supplementary  report,  giving  their  pretended  understanding 
of  the  "  datm  quo,"  directly  opposite  (as  Dr.  Johnson  tells 
me)  of  the  fact  that  your  board  declined  (very  properly,  I 
think)  to  consent  to  settle  the  question  at  issue  by  arbitra- 
tion !  I  hope  Union  Seminary  will  resume  her  original 
freedom.  The  Assembly  is  on  the  high  road  to  a  tyranny 
that  will  divide  the  Church  into  worrying  factions,  and  that 
will  not  be  permanently  endured  in  this  free  age,  and  all 
this  outside  of  any  provision  of  our  constitution.  Such 
usurpations  are  always  smuggled  in  under  the  guise  of  infer- 
ences from  constitutional  provisions. 

You  will  not  infer  from  anything  I  say  that  I  swear  by 
Dr.  Briggs.  I  dissent  firmly  from  some  of  his  views.  But 
he  is  not  a  heretic,  and  his  critical  conclusions  cannot  be 
set  aside  by  clamor,  nor  by  the  ignorant  and  prejudiced 
votes  of  an  Assembly.  He  must  be  met,  if  at  all,  by 
patient  discussion.  The  day  for  settling  critical  questions  by 
fire  and  banishment  is  past,  although  I  heard  a  high  oppo- 
nent of  Dr.  Briggs  say  (some  years  ago,  it  is  true)  that 
"Servetus  ought  to  have  been  burned." 

June  1,  1892. 

I  do  earnestly  desire  a  thorough  reform  in  our  judicial 
system,    which    is    the    worst,    I    believe,  in    any    Protestant 


DR.   BRIGGS  AND  HIS   TRIAL   FOR  HERESY.      325 

Church.  A  court  of  five  or  six  huntlrotl  mcu,  chosen  with  ii 
view  to  the  questions  they  are  to  adjudicate,  and  o[)cn  to  all 
outside  influences  and  prejudiced  appeals  while  they  are  act- 
ing in  a  judicial  capacity  !  Of  course  a  heresy-hunting  com- 
mittee would  like  to  carry  their  case  directly  to  such  a  body, 
passing  over  all  intervening  courts. 

July  4,  1893. 

I  was  not  disappointed  by  the  action  of  the  Washington  As- 
sembly. The  spirit  of  the  leaders  of  1835-1838  is  again  in  the 
ascendant.  But  it  is  too  violent  to  hold  its  present  undisputed 
control.  I  know  of  strong  dissent  among  conservative  men, 
even  at  Princeton,  and  in  the  far  West.  The  warriors,  as 
in  1837,  are  led  on  by  Kentuckians  and  Philadelphians.  In 
spite  of  misrepresentation  and  attempts  to  repress  discussion, 
thought  and  open  speech  will  go  forward  and  be  felt.  Union 
Seminary  will  live  and  be  a  great  power  in  this  struggle  for 
liberty. 

]My  greatest  concern  pertains  to  the  remoter  future  of  our 
Church.  Can  progressive  men  wait  long  enough  to  escape  at 
last  from  the  ecclesiastical  tyranny  that  has  fortified  itself  by 
misconstructions  of  Presbyterian  law,  still  remaining  in  the 
Church?  I  fear  many  will  get  tired  of  the  delay  and  go 
out  in  one  direction  or  another — many  of  our  best,  ablest 
men.  I  feel  the  tendency  myself.  In  fact,  I  begin  to  ques- 
tion Scriptural  authority  for  such  a  system  of  government  as 
ours  has  always  been.  Has  a  Christian  church  a  right  to 
build  up  such  fences  as  we  claim  for  safeguards  against 
error  ? 

September  24,  1893. 
The  assumption  now    is    that   having    a    majority  the  ex- 
tremists have  a  right,  as   a    human   organization,  to  construe 
or  make  laws   as    they    please,  without  regard  to  tlie  limita- 


326  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

tions  of  a  Chrisfictn  church,  restricted  by  the  teaching  of  its 
Divine  Founder  and  the  precedents  furnished  by  the  inspired 
apostles.  I  agree  with  you  that  if  the  church  is  a  mere  club, 
with  authority  to  make  or  un-make  its  own  laws,  it  is  an 
instrument  of  despotism  worse  than  Romanism.  We  are 
bound  by  a  long  confession,  all  of  which  we  are  confessedly 
not  required  to  accept,  but  the  majority  can  at  any  time  fix 
the  limits  of  "essential  and  necessary  articles"  as  wider  or 
narrower,  and  construe  those  articles  by  a  court  of  six  hundred 
men,  the  greater  number  of  whom  have  no  clear  knowledge  of 
the  questions  at  issue.  And  then  our  rules  of  order  can  be 
stretched  by  forced  interpretations  of  the  same  unwieldy 
majority  to  any  result  the  leaders  may  desire.  And,  finally, 
if  we  complain,  we  are  coolly  invited  to  "get  out,"  or  be 
held  as  covenant  breakers.  The  limits  of  church  authority 
must  be  more  discriminatingly  settled  if  we  are  to  hold  our 
ground  as  Protestant  Christians  and  churches.  Many  acute 
thinkers  are  inquiring  in  this  line. 

The  theory  of  Presbyterian  church  polity,  to 
which  Dr.  Patterson  here  refers,  was  very  clearly  de- 
fined by  the  Kev.  Dr.  William  H.  Roberts,  Stated 
Clerk  of  the  General  Assembly,  in  exj^laining  his  vote 
at  Washington  in  favor  of  condemning  Dr.  Briggs. 
It  was  as  follows  : 

The  foundation  principle  of  Church  organization  held  by 
the  Presbyterian  Church  is  that  of  a  voluntary  association. 
Without  intruding  on  the  rights  of  others,  Presbyterians  have 
voluntarily  associated  themselves  into  a  denomination  and 
have  agreed  to  maintain  a  certain  system  of  doctrine  and 
form  of  government.  The  system  of  doctrine  is  composed  of 
the    fundamental    doctnnes    contained    in    tlie  Confession   of 


DR.   BRIGGS  AND  HIS   TRIAL   FOR  HERESY.      327 

Faith.  The  Presbytery  of  New  York  })y  finding  charges  1 
to  3  in  the  case  of  Professor  Briggs  sufficient  to  put  the 
accused  on  trial,  approved  as  fundamental  doctrines  of  the 
Presbyterian  system  these  three,  viz.,  that  the  Reason  and  the 
Church  are  not  fountains  of  divine  authority,  and  that  the 
original  Scriptures  did  not  contain  errors.  The  evidence 
given  in  Presbytery  and  the  statements  made  by  the  parties 
on  this  floor  have  shown  clearly,  in  my  opinion,  that  the 
Presbytery  has  made  a  mistake  and  committed  an  injustice 
by  its  verdict  of  acquittal ;  and,  further,  that  the  Assembly, 
in  order  to  maintain  our  system  of  doctrine  intact,  must  so 
act  that  liberty  of  scholarship  and  opinion  shall  be  given  in 
the  future  as  in  the  past  only  in  matters  non-essential.  We 
must  hold  our  ministers  strictly  to  our  system  of  doctrine  in 
all  fundamentals,  or  our  Church  will  become  something  other 
than  the  clear-cut  and  thorough-going  Calvinistic  and  Pres- 
byterian Church   which  it  has  been  for  two  centuries. 

October  20,  1893. 
I  do  not  see  how  we  are  to  escape  from  the  centralizing 
tendency  of  our  Church.  Your  Synod  of  New  York  is 
largely  governed  by  it,  and  so  are  all  of  our  Synods.  They 
must  vindicate  their  loyalty  to  the  Assembly  by  humbly 
bowing  to  all  of  its  decisions.  And  the  Assembly  is  gov- 
erned by  a  dozen  men,  chiefly  of  Princeton  antecedents.  All 
the  powers  of  the  Church  are  concentrated  at  last  in  the 
Assembly,  even  to  the  creation  of  new  constitutional  provis- 
ions, which  are  easily  made  by  new  interpretations.  Then 
each  new  decision  of  the  Assembly  is  in  the  direction  of 
stringency  and  narrowness. 

November,  1893. 
Hardly   anything    is    surprising    in    these  days.      But    it 
does  seem  past   belief  that  Robinson  and  Bootli  should  j)ro- 


3^8  '^^^    UXION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

pose  the  refusal  of  license  to  the  students  of  Union  Seminary. 
That  was  beyond  the  Old  School  extremists  of  1835-1837. 
No  such  ground  was  ever  taken  in  regard  to  the  students 
of  Congregational  seminaries,  who  have  always  been  licensed 
without  question  on  examination.  Romanism  could  do  no  more. 
Union  Seminary  was  always  absolutely  independent  of  eccle- 
siastical control  up  to  1870.  It  now  stands  on  its  original 
ground.  .  .  .  The  truth  is,  our  Church  is  more  and  more 
becoming  a  despotism.  It  needs  a  radical  revision  in  polity 
as  well  as  doctrine.  I  do  not  wish  to  die  in  such  a  Church 
as  ours  now  is. 

It  is  not  my  purpose,  I  repeat  once  more,  to  give 
in  this  volume  a  history  of  Dr.  Briggs'  case,  but  I  am 
unwilling  to  pass  from  it  without  a  word  from  Dr. 
Briggs  himself.  Here  is  a  brief  but  very  lucid  state- 
ment on  the  subject,  prepared  by  him  at  my  request : 

STATEMENT   OF    DR.    ERIGGS. 

In  the  autumn  of  1879  I  went  to  Princeton  as  a  repre- 
sentative of  the  Union  faculty  to  ask  the  co-operation  of 
the  Princeton  faculty  in  the  re-establishment  of  the  Presby- 
terian Review.  The  W.  Robertson  Smith  case  was  still  in 
debate  in  Scotland,  and  it  was  supposed  that  I  was  in  gen- 
eral sympathy  with  him ;  although  I  had  not  expressed  my 
opinion  in  public  any  further  than  to  claim  his  liberty  of 
opinion  in  matters  of  the  Higher  Criticism,  in  my  inaugural  ad- 
dress as  Professor  of  Hebrew  in  October,  1876.  The  Prince- 
ton faculty  asked  my  views  of  inspiration  and  of  the  Higher 
Criticism.  I  stated  that  I  did  not  accept  Verbal  Inspira- 
tion and  Inerrancy  and  that  I  was  in  accord  with  the  move- 
ment of  Higher  Criticism.     The  Princeton    faculty  agreed  to 


DR.   BRIGGS  AND  HIS   TRIAL   FOR  HERESY.       329 

unite  with  the  Union  faculty  in  the  enterprise,  and  consented 
that  Dr.  A.  A.  Hodge  and  I  should  be  the  managing 
editors  of  the  Review.  The  Presbyterian  Review  was  started 
in  January,  1880.  The  introductory  article  was  written  by 
myself  and  signed  by  Dr.  Hodge  without  the  change  of  a 
word.  It  was  agreed  that  we  should  avoid  questions  in  de- 
bate between  us  and  endeavor  to  discuss  all  questions  in  the 
interest  of  the  peace,  harmony  and  unity  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church.  The  other  theological  seminaries  cordially  united 
with  us  on  this  platform.  Toward  the  close  of  1880  the 
Princeton  representative  stated  that  it  was  necessary  that  the 
W.  Kobertson  Smith  case  should  be  discussed  in  the  Review, 
and  that  the  conservatives  demanded  the  right  to  speak  their 
minds  upon  it.  It  was  then  resolved  that  both  sides  should 
be  heard  on  the  Higher  Criticism.  Dr.  Hodge  was  to  open 
and  close  the  debate.  I  was  to  follow  him  at  the  beginning 
and  precede  him  at  the  close.  Dr.  Hodge  was  to  choose  two 
intermediate  writers  and  I  two.  I  selected  Dr.  H.  P.  Smith 
and  Dr.  Willis  J.  Beecher,  the  representatives  of  the  Auburn 
and  Lane  faculties,  supposing  that  Dr.  Hodge  would  choose 
representatives  of  the  Alleghany  and  Chicago  faculties,  so 
that  the  six  faculties  represented  in  the  Revieio  would  all  be 
heard  from.  Instead  of  doing  that.  Dr.  Hodge  chose  Dr. 
Green,  of  Princeton,  and  Dr.  S.  Ives  Curtiss,  of  the  Con- 
gregational Seminary  of  Chicago.  To  this  plan  of  discussion 
we  agreed.  Subsequently  the  Princeton  representatives  in- 
sisted upon  joining  Dr.  Warfield  to  Dr.  Hodge  in  the  open- 
ing article  on  Inspiration  and  of  substituting  Dr.  Patton  for 
Dr.  Hodge  in  the  closing  article.  The  unfairness  and  parti- 
sanship of  this  proposed  change  of  agreement  was  pointed 
out ;  but  I  consented  to  this  violation  of  the  original  compact, 
under  the  advice  of  my  colleagues  in  Union  Seminary,  in 
the  interest  of  peace  and  harmony. 


330  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

At  the  close  of  the  discussion  in  the  Review  in  April,  1883, 
there  was  little  further  discussion  of  the  subject  of  Higher 
Criticism  in  the  Review,  except  incidentally  in  the  notices  of 
books ;  and  the  excitement  in  the  Church  on  the  subject  was 
gradually  abating.  It  was  revived  only  by  partisan  eiforts 
in  connection  with  the  movement  for  the  revision  of  the 
Westminster  Confession  in  1889. 

The  General  Assembly  in  May,  1889,  to  the  surprise  of 
the  great  majority  of  the  Church,  sent  down  overtures  to  the 
Presbyteries,  proposing  the  following  questions :  Do  you 
desire  a  revision  of  the  Confession  of  Faith  ?  If  so,  in  what 
respects,  and  to  what  extent? 

These  questions  greatly  agitated  the  whole  Presbyterian 
Church.  Three  parties  sprang  into  existence  :  One  in  favor 
of  revision ;  one  opposed  to  revision ;  and  a  third  in  favor  of 
a  new  and  simple  consensus  creed.  The  last  two  parties 
co-operated  in  the  revision  movement  and  won  the  victory, 
the  result  of  which  was  the  appointment  of  two  committees; 
one  to  prepare  a  revision ;  the  other  to  prepare  a  concensus 
creed.  Union  Seminary  led  the  party  of  revision ;  Princeton 
the  anti-revision  party.  At  first  I  was  opposed  to  the  revi- 
sion movement,  as  premature  and  impracticable ;  and  ex- 
pressed my  views  to  this  eiFect  in  the  Presbytenan  Review  for 
October,  1889;  but  subsequently,  seeing  that  the  movement 
was  an  earnest  and  powerful  one,  and  that  it  was  necessary 
for  me  to  take  sides,  I  could  not  refrain  from  joining  the 
party  of  progress. 

The  Presbyterian  Union  of  New  York  invited  Dr.  Patton 
and  myself  to  represent  the  two  sides  of  the  question  before 
them  December  2,  1889.  This  debate  drew  the  fire  of  the 
entire  anti-revision  party  on  me.  The  very  next  evening, 
December  3rd,  The  3Iail  and  Express  published  a  bitter 
editorial  attack  on  Uniou  Semiuary  and    on  me,  inspired   by 


DR.   BRIGGS  AND  HIS   TRIAL   FOR  HERESY.      331 

the  anti-revisionists ;  and  this  attacli  continued  in  a  most 
shameful  way  from  that  date  onward. 

These  articles  in  The  Mail  and  Express  were  sent  to  Pres- 
byterian ministers  and  laymen  especially  in  the  West  and 
Southwest,  stirring  up  the  Presbyterian  Church  against  Union 
Seminary,  the  Presbytery  of  New  York,  and  myself  by  false 
statements  and  misrepresentations.  As  this  was  done  secretly, 
and  was  unknown  at  the  time  to  the  friends  of  Union  Sem- 
inary, there  was  no  opportunity  of  counteracting  them.  In 
the  interest  of  peace  and  harmony,  the  friends  of  Union 
Seminary  refrained  from  making  any  reply  to  these  attacks 
in  New  York  and  vicinity,  except  by  a  few  dignified  articles 
by  the  late  Henry  Day.  For  the  same  reasons  I  refrained 
from  making  any  reply  to  the  attacks  upon  me.  This  situation 
continued  for  an  entire  year,  waxing  worse  and  worse. 

In  the  autumn  of  1890  enemies  of  Union  Seminary  em- 
ployed a  student  in  the  Junior  Class  of  the  seminary  to  act 
as  their  spy.  He  made  such  false  reports  of  my  lectures 
that  the  entire  student  body  arose  in  indignation  and  de- 
manded his  retirement  from  the  seminary.  The  faculty, 
under  the  advice  of  the  Board  of  Directors,  called  him  to 
account,  and  after  a  careful  investigation  of  the  case  ex- 
pelled him  from  the  seminary  for  his  false  statements  in  the 
public  press. 

When  this  situation  was  most  acute,  November  11,  1890, 
the  directors  of  Union  Seminary  unanimously  transferred  me 
to  the  chair  of  Biblical  Theology,  just  established  by  Mr. 
Charles  Butler,  president  of  the  board.  My  induction  into 
the  new  chair  took  place  on  January  20,  1801.  The  chair 
was  entitled  the  Edward  Robinson  Chair  of  Biblical  Theol- 
ogy. ■  Inasmuch  as  Edward  Robinson  had  been  my  teacher, 
and  his  name  was  more  identified  with  Biblical  Geography 
than  with  any  other  subject;   the   theme   selected   by  me  for 


332  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

my  address  was  Biblical  Geography.  The  donor  of  the  chair, 
who  was  at  the  same  time  president  of  the  Board  of  Direc- 
tors of  the  seminary,  was  consulted  as  to  the  theme.  He 
said  that  under  other  circumstances  the  theme  would  be  most 
appropriate  ;  but,  under  the  circumstances  forced  upon  us  at 
the  time,  it  was  necessary  to  select  a  theme  that  would  vin- 
dicate the  seminary  and  myself  in  the  matters  under  debate. 
I  said  to  him  that  the  result  would  be  a  very  great  increase 
in  public  excitement  and  bitter  hostility  on  the  part  of  the 
ultra  conservatives,  but  he  replied  that  it  was  necessary  to 
meet  the  issue  forced  upon  us,  whatever  the  result  ftiight  be. 
When  one  considers  that  it  was  Mr.  Butler  Avho  aided  Dr. 
Robinson  in  his  journeys  to  Palestine,  in  the  investigation 
of  Biblical  Geography ;  one  can  understand  the  significance 
of  his  opinion  that  I  should  abandon  the  theme  of  Biblical 
Geography  and  select  the  burning  question.  Yielding  to  his 
advice,  which  was  reinforced  by  the  faculty  and  other  mem- 
bers of  the  board,  the  theme  selected  was  the  Aidlioriiy  of 
Holy  Scripture.  The  aim  of  the  address  was  to  maintain  and 
to  assert  in  the  strongest  terms  the  divine  authority  of  Holy 
Scripture  in  connection  with  a  full  recognition  of  the  results 
of  modern  Biblical  criticism  and  modern  thought  in  all  de- 
partments. No  position  was  taken  in  that  address  which  had 
not  previously  been  taken  in  articles  in  the  Presbyterian  Re- 
view and  in  printed  books  many  months  before.  The  limits 
of  the  discourse  required  the  condensation  of  a  vast  amount 
of  material  and  the  concentration  of  a  very  great  many  points 
of  difference,  which  in  the  nature  of  the  case  were  exceed- 
ingly disagreeable  to  the  ultra  conservative  section  of  the 
Church,  and  the  situation  exacted  of  the  speaker  that  his 
rhetoric  should  be  fired  to  some  degree  of  passion  iii  vie\v 
of  the  defense  of  himself  and  the  cause  tiiat  he  represented, 
after  more  than  a  year  of  unjust  attack.     After  several  years 


DR.   BRIGGS  AND  HIS   TRIAL   FOR  HERESY.      333 

of  reflection  I  do  not  see  how  I  could  have  done  otherwise ; 
but  there  is  not  a  word  of  the  address  that  I  see  any  reason 
to  change.  There  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt  that  this 
attack  upon  the  seminary  and  myself  was  the  result  of  the 
bitter  feelings  engendered  by  the  revision  controversy,  and 
that  it  was  organized  and  carried  on  as  an  anti-revision  con- 
spiracy by  a  very  small  body  of  active  and  unscrupulous 
partisans,  who  used  The  Mall  and  Express  and  affiliated 
organs  and  also  an  extensive  pamphlet  literature,  and  ex- 
pended a  large  sum  of  money  in  order  to  fire  the  Presby- 
terian Church  against  the  Higher  Criticism  and  to  persuade 
them  that  the  Bible  and  the  evangelical  faith  were  in  peril. 
In  fact,  the  Presbyterian  Church  was  deliberately  thrown 
into  a  panic  about  the  Bible  in  order  to  defeat  the  revision 
movement  and  to  discredit  Union  Seminary.  I  was  only  an 
incident  in  this  warfare.  Circumstances  made  me  the  con- 
venient target  on  which  to  concentrate  the  attack.  In  all 
respects  this  conspiracy  M^as  successful.  The  revision  move- 
ment was  defeated  ;  Union  Seminary  was  discredited  ;  and  I 
was  suspended  from  the  ministry  of  the  Presbyterian  Church. 
It  ought  to  be  said  that  I  was  taken  ill  with  a  severe 
attack  of  the  grippe,  which  confined  me  to  my  house  and  to 
my  bed  at  the  time  when  the  movement  against  me  began 
in  the  Presbytery  of  New  York  and  the  General  Assembly. 
It  was  entirely  contrary  to  ecclesiastical  usage  that  action 
should  be  taken  against  a  minister  in  his  absence,  when  it 
was  impossible  for  him  to  make  such  public  statements 
before  the  bodies  as  might  have  satisfied  them  that  no  pro- 
cess was  necessary.  The  directors  of  Union  Seminary 
endeavored  to  overcome  the  panic  by  submitting  a  series  of 
questions  to  me,  the  answers  to  which  were  signed  from  my 
sick  bed.  This  action  by  the  Board  of  Directors  had  no 
appreciable  effect  on  the  situation. 


334  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

It  should  also  be  said  that  I  proposed  to  the  directors, 
through  the  officers  of  the  board,  to  resign  my  chair  in  the 
seminary  and  relieve  them  of  the  necessity  of  defending  me. 
The  reason  why  I  have  remained  in  my  chair  is  that  I  was 
requested  not  to  resign  because  the  directors  felt  that  the 
rights  and  liberty  of  the  seminary  were  inseparably  bound 
up  in  my  case. 

It  should  also  be  said  that  it  was  my  desire,  in  accor- 
dance with  my  best  judgment,  to  withdraw  from  the  Presby- 
terian Church  after  my  acquittal  by  the  Presbytery  of  New 
York,  and  that  I  yielded  my  desire  and  judgment  to  the 
unanimous  advice  of  the  faculty  and  the  pillars  of  the  sem- 
inary. I  went  on  to  sure  defeat  at  the  General  Assembly, 
as  was  well  known  beforehand ;  and  then  suifered  the  humil- 
iation of  the  unrighteous  and  illegal  sentence  for  five  years. 
At  the  close  of  this  time,  having  made  up  my  mind  that  I 
could  change  my  ecclesiastical  relations  without  any  damage  to 
the  seminary  or  the  cause  that  I  represented,  I  carried  out 
my  desire  and  judgment,  expressed  several  years  before, 
and  severed  my  connection  with  the  Presbyterian  Church 
and  was  received  into  the  ministry  of  the  Protestant  Episco- 
pal Church. 

In  closing  this  brief  notice  of  the  case  of  Dr.  Briggs 
I  will  add  a  word  touching  the  effect  upon  public 
opinion  of  his  suspension  by  the  General  Assembly,  as 
also  of  that  of  his  friend,  the  Kev.  Dr.  Henry  Preserved 
Smith,  who  on  essentially  the  same  ground  was  not 
long  afterwards  condemned  as  a  heretic  and  jiunished 
in  the  same  way.  How  were  these  two  gifted  Chris- 
tian scholars,  after  they  had  been  declared  guilty  of 
heresy,  regarded  and  treated  by  their  brethren  outside 


DR.   BRIGGS  AND  HIS   TRIAL   FOR  HERESY.      335 

the  Presbyterian  Church  ?  The  following  extract 
from  a  letter  of  Mr.  D.  Willis  James,  dated  Pasadena, 
California,  March  30,  1899,  may  serve  as  a  partial 
answer  to  this  question  : 

Rarely  has  any  ecclesiastical  action  met  with  such 
prompt  and  well-nigh  universal  condemnation  as  that  of  sus- 
pending the  Rev.  Dr.  Charles  A.  Briggs  and  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Henry  Preserved  Smith  from  the  sacred  ministry.  A  large 
and,  as  I  believe,  the  most  intelligent  part  of  the  Presby- 
terian Church  disapproved  of  this  action.  Dr.  Briggs  was 
warmly  welcomed  into  the  Episcopal  Church  and  endorsed 
by  some  of  its  ablest  leaders,  such  men,  for  example,  as 
Bishop  Potter  and  the  Rev.  Dr.  Huntington  ;  while  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Henry  Preserved  Smith  was  unanimously  elected  by  the 
trustees  of  Amherst  College  (composed  of  leading  Congrega- 
tional clergymen  and  laymen,  also  leading  Episcopal  clergy- 
men and  laymen,  and  at  least  two  Presbyterians,  one  a 
prominent  clergyman  of  New  York  City)  as  Professor  of 
Biblical  History  and  Interpretation  and  associate  pastor  of 
the  college  church.  Dr.  Smith  was  also  received  into  the 
Congregational  body  by  a  unanimous  vote  of  the  local  asso- 
ciation and  council.  In  what  way  could  these  eminent 
representatives  of  Episcopacy  and  of  New  England  Congre- 
grtionalism — differing  so  widely  in  forms  and  polity,  agree- 
ing so  strongly  in  the  liberty  wherewith  Christ  has  made  us 
free — have  expressed  more  emphatically  their  feeling  and 
conviction  that  Dr.  Briggs  and  Dr.  Smith,  judged  by  the 
great  rule  of  the  Gospel,  are  no  heretics  but  brethren  be- 
loved in  the  Lord? 


part  XTbitb. 


INTERNAL  DEVELOPMENT  AND  EXPANSION  OF 
THE  SEMINARY  SINCE  1886. 

Br 
THE    REV.    FRANCIS    BROWN,    Ph.D.,  D.D., 

Davenport  Professor  of  Hebrew  and  (he  Cognate  Languages. 

THE  COURSES  OF  STUDY  AND  SCHEDULE  FOR 

1898-99. 

THE  LIBRARY  AND  THE  ALUMNI, 

BY 

THE   REV.    DR.    CHARLES   R.    GILLETT, 

Librarian. 

THE  INAUGURATION  OF  A  NEW  PRESIDENT 
AND  GLANCES  AT  THE  FUTURE. 


INTERNAL   DEVELOPMENT.  339 


part  ^birb. 


THE      INTERNAL      DEVELOPMENT      AND      EXPANSION      OF 
THE    SEMINARY     SINCE    1886. 

BY  PROFESSOK  FRANCIS  BROWN,  D.  D. 

The  internal  development  of  the  seminary,  during 
the  last  twelve  or  thirteen  years,  has  been  gradual  and 
quiet.     The  advance  is,  however,  considerable. 

Increase  in  the  teaching  force.  Since  the  establish- 
ment of  the  Edward  Robinson  professorship  of  Biblical 
Theology,  in  1890,  not  only  have  three  new  professors 
been  chosen  to  fill  vacancies,  *  but  in  the  present  year 
(February,  1899)  two  additional  professors  have  been 
elected :  the  Kev.  Thomas  Cuming  Hall,  D.D,,  a  grad- 
uate of  Princeton  University,  in  1879,  and  of  this  sem- 
inary in  1882,  as  professor  of  Christian  Ethics,  and  the 
Kev.  George  William  Knox,  D.D.,  a  graduate  of  Ham- 
ilton College  in  1874,  and  of  Auburn  Theological 
Seminary  in  1877,  as  professor  of  the  Philosophy  and 

*  These  are:  The  Rev.  Arthur  Cushman  McGiffert,  D.D.,  a  graduate 
of  western  Reserve  University  in  1882,  and  of  this  seminary  in  1885,  on 
the  resignation  of  Dr.  SchafF,  in  1893,  was  appointed  Washburn  professor 
of  Church  History  ;  the  Rev.  Charles  Cuthbert  Hall,  D.D.,  a  graduate  of 
Williams  College  in  1872,  and  of  this  seminary  in  1875,  on  the  resignation 
of  Dr.  Prentiss,  in  1897,  was  appointed  Skinner  and  McAlpin  professor  of 
Pastoral  Theology,  Church  Polity  and  Mission  Work,  and  also  president  of 
the  faculty,  on  the  resignation  of  that  office  by  Dr.  Hastings,  in  the  same 
year ;  and,  in  1878,  the  Rev.  William  Adams  Brown,  a  graduate  of  Yale 
University  in  1886,  and  of  this  seminary  in  1890,  was  appointed  Roosevelt 
professor  of  Systematic  Theology,  to  fill  the  vacancy  caused  by  the  death 
of  Dr.  Worcester,  in  1893. 


340  '^HE    UNIOX   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

History  of  Religion.     These  gentlemen  will  begin  their 
.  regnlar  work  in  the  autumn  of  1899. 

With  the  transfers  of  Dr.  Brio-o-s  to  the  Edward 
Robinson  professorshij)  of  Biblical  Theology,  and  of 
Dr.  Francis  Brown,  to  the  Davenport  professorshij^  of 
Hebrew  and  the  Cognate  Languages  (both  in  1890),  the 
position  of  instructor  in  Biblical  Philology,  as  assistant 
in  the  Old  Testament  department,  was  revived.  It  was 
held  for  one  year,  1891-92,  by  the  Rev.  Owen  Ham- 
ilton Gates,  Ph.D.,  a  graduate  of  Dartmouth  College 
in  1883,  and  a  Fellow  of  this  seminary  in  1889-1891. 
When  Dr.  Gates  left  to  accept  the  Old  Testament  pro- 
fessorship at  Oberlin,  O.,  the  i^osition  was  taken  by  the 
Rev.  Charles  Prosper  Fagnani,  D.D.,  a  graduate  of  the 
College  of  the  City  of  New  York  in  1873,  and  of  this 
seminary  in  1882,  wdio  still  occupies  the  j^lace.  In 
1897,  the  New  Testament  de23artment  was  strengthened 
by  the  appointment  of  the  Rev.  James  Everett  Frame, 
M.A.,  a  graduate  of  Harvard  University  in  1891,  and 
Fellow  of  this  seminary  in  1895-1897,  as  instructor  in 
that  department,  a  position  he  still  holds.  In  addition 
to  these,  the  Rev.  Charles  Ripley  Gillett,  D.D.,L.H.D., 
librarian  of  the  seminary,  has,  since  1893,  given 
regular  instruction  in  Theological  Encycloj^edia, 
Methodology  and  Bibliography. 

Relations  with  the  Columbia  University  arid  with  the 
New  York  University.  A  much  greater  practical  en- 
largement of  the  teaching  force  to  whose  instruction 
students  of  this  seminary  have  access,  is  due  to  the  spe- 
cial relations  of  mutual  academic  courtesy  maintained 
since  1890  with  the  Columbia  University  and  with  the 
New    York    University,    under    which    relations    well 


INTERNAL    DEVELOPMENT.  34I 

qualified  students  of  the  seminary  are  admitted  upon 
proper  recommendation,  and  without  fee,  to  the  courses 
offered  by  the  faculty  of  Philosoj^thy  at  Columbia,  and 
in  the  University  Graduate  School  at  New  York  Uni- 
versity. These  courses  include  advance  work  in 
Psychology  and  Philosophy,  Anthropology,  Political 
Science,  Economics  and  Sociology,  Greek,  Latin  and 
Semitica,  Sanskrit,  German  and  English,  History, 
Comparative  Religion,  and  other  important  subjects. 
A  large  proportion  of  the  students  of  the  seminary, 
avail  themselves  of  these  privileges. 

Seminary  Curriculum.  Until  1894,  there  had  been 
but  three  lectures  daily  in  the  seminary;  since  that  date 
the  number  has  been  increased  to  four.  The  course  of 
study  in  the  seminary  has  been  modified  in  several  par- 
ticulars. While  a  professional  school  can  never  adopt 
a  purely  elective  system,  it  is  recognized  that,  after  a 
solid  foundation  has  been  laid  in  those  studies  which 
ought  to  form  a  part  of  the  furnishing  of  every  minister, 
some  degree  of  specialization  is  possible,  and,  for 
thorough  work  is  highly  desirable,  if  not  necessary. 
Changes  in  the  curriculum  have  been  made  with  this 
end  in  view.  In  1894,  there  was  announced  a  division 
of  courses  into  required  (in  particular  years  or  terms), 
variable  (as  to  year  or  class,  although  required  for  grad- 
uation), and  elective.  In  the  junior  or  first  year,  the 
opportunity  for  electives  is  least,  it  is  greater  in  the 
middle  year,  and  greater  still  in  the  senior  year; 
while  graduate  students  and  special  students  have  a 
free  range  of  electives.  A  certain  proportion  of  the 
electives  may  be  taken  at  the  Columbia  University  and 
at  the  New  York  University. 


342  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

There  has  been  an  increase  in  the  nnmber  of  semi- 
nars or  classes  for  Special  Research.  In  the  year 
1898-99,  there  were  four  seminars  carried  on  in  as 
many  dej^artments,  to  which  only  students  of  high 
grade  are  admitted,  after  personal  application  to  the 
professor.  Besides  these,  there  are  various  seminars  at 
the  universities,  open  to  the  students  of  the  seminary. 

The  practical  use  of  the  English  Bible  has  been  rec- 
ognized as  a  distinct  branch  of  instruction.  In 
1894-95,  Dr.  Fagnani  offered  a  special  course  in  this 
subject,  and  since  1896,  he  has  given  two  courses  each 
year ;  an  additional  course  is  announced  for  1899-1900, 
by  Thomas  C.  Hall,  to  whom  the  subject  has  been 
sj)ecifically  assigned. 

Students  entering  the  seminary  with  a  good  elemen- 
tary knowledge  of  Hebrew  have,  since  1884,  been  put 
in  a  class  by  themselves,  and  have  had  opportunity  for 
advanced  work.  Since  1897,  a  similar  advanced  class 
in  Greek  has  been  instituted,  open  to  those  who  pass 
an  entrance  examination  in  that  subject,  and  the  result 
has  been  gratifying. 

In  1896,  an  Honor  Course  was  established  for  stu- 
dents of  the  higher  grades,  with  somewhat  severer  re- 
quirements than  the  Regular  Course.  There  is  an 
Honor  Course  for  graduates  as  well  as  for  under- 
graduates. Special  students  who  take  at  least  fourteen 
hours  a  week,  are  upon  the  same  footing  with  under- 
graduates and  graduates  in  the  matter  of  recommenda- 
tion to  the  universities,  but  are  not  eligible  for  the 
Honor  Course  in  the  seminary. 

Degrees.  Under  an  agreement  made  in  1896,  with 
the  regents  of    the  University  of  the  State  of  New 


INTERNAL  DEVELOPMENT.  343 

York,  students  wlio  successfully  complete  the  Honor 
Course,  are  recommended  by  the  faculty  to  the  regents 
for  the  degree  of  B.  D.  Students  have  the  further 
opportunity  of  working  for  the  degrees  of  M.  A.  and 
Ph.D.,  at  the  Columbia  University  or  at  the  New  York 
University,  and  certain  courses  at  this  seminary  are 
accepted  by  these  universities  in  partial  fulfilment  of 
the  conditions  of  these  degrees. 

Scholarships.  Since  1893,  four  ]3rize  scholarships 
have  been  offered  each  year  to  college  graduates  of  high 
rank  who  pass  a  special  entrance  examination.  In 
1898,  a  plan  was  adopted  by  which  all  scholarshij)s  are 
awarded  on  the  basis  of  merit,  and  the  scholarships  are 
divided  into  classes  varying  in  amount  and  correspond- 
ing to  different  degrees  of  merit.  "  Merit "  is  under- 
stood to  include  both  scholarship  rank  and  practical 
Christian  efficiency. 

In  addition  to  the  scholarships  with  stipend,  an  order 
of  honorary  scholarships  without  stipend,  was  estab- 
lished in  1898,  for  the  further  recognition  of  merit, 
called  the  Edward  Kobinson  Scholarships. 

Christian  Work.  For  years  past,  a  large  number  of 
the  students  of  the  seminary,  have  engaged  in  many 
forms  of  Christian  work,  under  various  methods  of  ap- 
pointment and  control.  In  1898,  this  work  was  re- 
organized, and  placed  under  the  direction  of  the  faculty 
as  a  department  of  Christian  Work.  The  following 
branches  of  work  are  maintained  under  the  rules  of  the 
dejDartment :  work  in  churches  and  chapels ;  work  as 
pastors'  assistants ;  work  in  connection  with  the  city 


344  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

mission  society  ;  settlement  work  ;  work  in  pul)lic  in- 
stitutions ;  regular  and  occasional  preaching ;  choir 
service  (for  the  advancement  of  the  worship  life  within 
the  seminary,  and  for  occasional  choir  work  in  public 
institutions).  Suitable  measures  are  taken  to  secure 
supervision  of  the  men,  and  reports  of  their  work 
sufficiently  definite  to  base  upon  them  estimates  of  rank 
which  estimates  are  considered  in  the  award  of  the 
merit  scholarships. 

Almost  the  entire  student  body  is  engaged  in  some 
kind  of  Christian  work  under  this  scheme. 

Student  Societies.  In  addition  to  the  historic  "  So- 
ciety of  Inquiry  Concerning  Missions,"  a  branch  of  the 
Young  Men's  Christian  Association  was  formed  in 
1898,  and  by  means  of  it,  membershij)  was  secured  in 
the  "World's  Student  Federation  of  Christian  Workers." 

Religious  Services.  The  established  services  have 
long  been  daily  morning  prayers,  students'  prayer  meet- 
ings and  a  monthly  devotional  meeting  of  faculty  and 
students.  In  February,  1898,  a  ves23er  service,  with 
sermon,  was  begun  at  4:30  on  Sunday  afternoons,  and 
has  been  continued.  During  the  year  1898-99,  a 
series  of  ten  sermons  on  "  The  Holy  Spirit,"  has  been 
given  on  alternate  Sunday  afternoons,  by  sjiecially  in- 
vited preachers.  Attendance  by  the  students  upon  all 
the  religious  services  of  the  seminary  has  been  made 
voluntary. 

The  Union  Settlement.  A  social  settlement  was  es- 
tablished in  1895,  by  alumni  and  friends  of  the  sem- 


INTERNAL   DEVELOPMENT.  345 

inary,  known  as  the  "  Union  Settlement."  It  has  a 
residence  house  in  a  needy  district  of  the  city — at  237 
East  104th  Street — with  separate  quarters  for  cluh 
rooms  and  kindergarten,  a  hxrge  hall  for  Sunday  ser- 
vices, and  a  large  free  playground.  The  Head  Worker 
is  a  graduate  of  the  seminary,  and  members  of  the 
Board  of  Directors  and  of  the  faculty  belong  to  the 
governing  body.  Its  influence  is  rapidly  increasing, 
and  it  offers  valuable  opportunities  to  students  desiring 
to  engage  in  this  form  of  Christian  work.  Its  relation 
to  the  seminary  is  close,  though  unoflicial.  It  is  sup- 
ported by  private  subscription,  and  representatives  of 
nearly  all  the  Protestant  Communions  are  united  in  its 
maintenance. 

The  Alumni  Club.  The  Alumni  Club  of  the  Union 
Theological  Seminary  was  formed  in  1890.  It  was  an 
outgrowth  from  a  club  maintained  for  some  years  by  the 
members  of  the  class  of  1875.  Its  members  are  alumni 
of  the  seminary,  for  the  most  part  settled  in  and  near 
New  York.  Its  purpose  is  social  fellowship,  the  discus- 
sion of  important  questions,  and  co-o^^eration,  whenever 
practicable,  in  the  interest  of  the  seminary.  It  holds 
four  meetings  each  year,  with  a  luncheon,  usually  in 
November,  January  and  March,  and  a  dinner  at  the 
anniversary  in  May.  Papers  and  addresses  by  special- 
ists in  many  fields,  form  a  prominent  feature  of  the 
meetino-s.  The  number  of  members  is  about  250. 
The  alumni,  generally,  are  invited  to  the  annual 
dinner  in  May.  It  was  at  a  meeting  of  this  club 
in  1894,  that  the  Union  Settlement  Association  was 
formed,  which  now  carries  on  the  settlement  referred 
to  above. 


346  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

THE    COURSES    OF    STUDY. 

It  may  interest  some  readers  to  see,  in  addition  to  Dr. 
Brown's  comprehensive  and  instructive  paper,  the  Courses 
OF  Study  for  1898-99.  Here  they  are  arranged  by  de- 
partments. 

PEOP^DEUTICS. 

Lectures   on   Theological    Encyclopfedia,   Methodology  and  Bibliology,   Dr. 
Gillett;  Fii-stTerm,  Fri.,  12  M.;  required  of  Junioi-s. 

BIBLICAL  PHILOLOGY  AND  EXEGESIS. 

Old  Testament. 

Hebrew  A  (1)  Introductory  Hebrew  Grammar,  with  exercises  in  reading  and 
writing  Hebrew,  followed  by  the  reading  of  selected  chapters  of  the 
Old  Testament,  Dr.  Fagnani  ;  First  Term,  Mon.,  Tues.,  Thurs.,  9  A. 
M.  ;  Wed.,  10  A.  M.  ;  Fri.,  11  A.  M. ;  required  of  Juniors  not  taking  B. 

Hebrew  A  (2)  Readings  in  the  Pentateuch,  with  Exposition,  Dr.  Fagnani  ; 
Second  Term,  Thure.,  9  A.  M.,  Fri.,  10  A.  M.;  required  of  Juniors  not 
taking  B. 

Hebrew  B  (1)  Readings  in  I.  Samuel,  with  exercises,  Prof.  F.  Brown  ;  First 
Term,  Tiies.,  9  A.  M. ;  Wed.  10  A.  M.;  Fri.  11  A.  M.;  required  of 
Juniors  advanced  in  Hebrew,  elective  for  Graduates  and  qualified 
special  students. 

Hdyrew  B  (2)  Unpointed  Text ;  Old  Hebrew  Inscriptions,  Prof.  F.  Brown  ; 
Second  Term,  Fri.,  10  A.  M. ;  required  of  Junioi-s  advanced  in  Hebrew, 
elective  for  all  other  qualified  students, 

Hebrew  C.  Hebrew  Etymology  and  Syntax  ;  Sight  reading  of  Hebrew  Prose, 
Dr.  Fagnani  ;  Second  Term,  Mon.,  10  A.  M. ;  required  of  Juniors. 

Hebrew  D.  Readings  in  Kings,  with  Exposition,  Prof.  F.  Brown  ;  Second 
Term,  Tues.,  11  A.  M.;  Wed.,  10  A.  M.;  required  of  Juniors. 

Hebrew  E  (1)  Isaiah  i.-xii.,  Prof.  F.  Brown  ;  First  Term,  Tues.,  10  A.  M. ; 
Wed.,  9  A.  M.;  variable,  Middlers  or  Seniors. 

Hebrew  E  (2)  Psalms  of  Books  I.  and  II.,  Prof.  F.  Brown  ;  Second  Term, 
Tues.,  Wed.,  9  A.  M.;  variable,  Middlers  or  Seniors. 

Hebrew  F  (1)  Zeplianiah  and  Jonah,  Prof.  F.  Brown  ;  First  Term,  Fri.,  9 
A.  M. ;  variable,  Middlers  or  Seniors. 


THE   COURSES  OF  STUDY.  347 

Hebrew  Y  (2)  Micah,  Prof.  F.  Brown;  Second  Term,  Fri.,  9  A.  M. ;  var- 
iable, Middlers  or  Seniors. 

Hebrew  G  (1)  Exegetical  Class  ;  Judges,  Prof.  F.  Brown  ;  First  Term,  Wed., 
Fri.,  2.15  P.  M. ;  elective  for  all  qualified  students. 

Hebrew  G  (2)  Exegetical  Class;  Isaiah  xl.,  /.,  Prof.  F.  Brown;  Second 
Term,  Wed.,  Fri.,  2.15  P.  M.;  elective  for  all  qualified  students. 

Hebrew  H.  Seminar ;  Haggai,  Zechariah  and  Ezra,  Prof.  F.  Brown  ;  two 
hours  weekly  through  the  year  ;  open  to  a  limited  number  of  Graduates, 
Seniors  and  Middlers  of  high  standing,  after  personal  application  to 
the  Professor. 

Biblical  Aramaic.  Dr.  Fagnani  ;  Second  Term,  Thurs.,  11  A.  M.;  elective  for 
all  qualified  students. 

(See  also  Semitic  Courses  at  Columbia  and  New  York  Universities.) 

New  Testament. 

Greek  A  (1)  Grammar  of  the  N.  T.  Greek  ;  Synoptic  Gospels  ;  the  Narrative 
of  Mark  and  his  Parallels ;  the  Logia  and  other  sources  of  Luke  and 
Matthew  ;  Mr.  Frame  ;  Fii-st  Term,  Mon.,  12  M.;  Tues.,  Wed.,  11  A. 
M. ;  Fri.,  10  A.  M. ;  required  of  Juniors  not  taking  B. 

Greek  A  (2)  Synoptic  Gospels,  with  Grammar,  continued,  Mr.  Frame  ; 
Second  Term,  Mon.,  11  A.  M.;  Wed.,  9  A.  M.;  Thurs.,  10  A.  M.;  re- 
quired of  Juniors  not  taking  B. 

Greek  B  (1)  Epistles  of  John,  Prof.  Vincent  ;  First  Term,  Tues.,  11  A.  M., 
Fri.,  10  A.  M. ;  required  of  Juniore  advanced  in  Greek. 

Greek  B  (2)  Gospel  of  John,  Prof.  Vincent  ;  Second  Term,  Wed.,  12  M.; 
Fri.  11  A.  M. ;  required  of  Juniore  advanced  in  Greek,  elective  for 
Middlers,  Graduates,  and  qualified  Special  Students. 

Greek  C  (1)  Exegetical  Class;  Galatians,  Mr.  Frame;  First  Term,  Wed., 
Fri. ,  2. 15  P.  M. ;  elective  for  all  but  Juniors  taking  Greek  A. 

Greek  C  (2)  Exegetical  Class  ;  Acts,  Mr.  Frame  ;  Second  Term,  Wed.,  Fri., 
2.15  P.  M. ;  elective  for  all  qualified  students. 

Greek  D  (1)  Epistle  to  the  Eomans,  Prof.  Vincent  ;  First  Term,  Tues.,  10 
A.  M. ;  Wed.,  9  A.  M. ;  variable  for  Seniors  or  Middlers. 

Greek  D  (2)  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  Prof.  Vincent  ;  Second  Term,  Tues., 
Wed. ,  9  A.  M. ;  variable  for  Seniors  or  Middlers. 

Cheek  E  (1)  General  Introduction  to  the  New  Testament,  I.,  Prof.  Vincent  ; 
First  Term,  Fri.,  9  A.  M. ;  variable  for  Senioi"s  or  Middlei-s. 

Gi-eek  E  (2)  General  Introduction  to  the  New  Testament,  II.,  Prof.  Vin- 
cent ;  Second  Term,  Fri.,  9  A.  M. ;  variable  for  Seniors  or  Middlers. 


348  T^HE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

Greek  F.  I.  and  II.  Peter  and  Jiide,  Mr.  Frame;  Second  Term,  Tues.,  2.15 
P.  M. ;  elective  for  all  qualified  students. 

Greek  G.     Seminar ;    I.    Corinthians,    Prof.    Vincent  ;    two   hours   weekly 
through  the  year  ;  open  to  a  limited  number  of  Middlers,  Seniors  and 
Graduates  of  high  standing,  after  personal  application  to  the  professor. 
(See  further  courses  in  Greek  at  Columbia  and  New  York  Univei-sities. ) 


BIBLICAL  THEOLOGY. 


A.  General  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  the  Bible,  Prof.  Briggs  ;  First 
Term,  Tues.,  10  A.  M. ;  Wed.,  9  A.  M.;  required  of  Juniors. 

B  (1)  Biblical  Theology  I.:  The  Biblical  Doctrine  of  God,  Prof.  Briggs  ; 
Fii-st  Term.,  Tues.,  Thurs.,  9  A.  M.;  Wed.,  11  A.  M.;  variable, 
Middlers  or  Seniors. 

B  (2)  Biblical  Theology  II. :  The  Biblical  Doctrine  of  Man  and  of  Eedemp- 
tion.  Prof.  Briggs;  Second  Term,  Tues.,  Thurs.,  11  A.  M. ;  Wed.,  10 
A.  M. ;    variable,  Middlers  or  Seniors. 

C.  Special  Introduction  to  the  Old  Testament,  Prof.  Briggs  ;  Second  Term, 

Tues.,  10  A.  M. ;  Wed.,  11  A.  M. ;  elective  for  all  students. 

D.  The  Ethical  Teachings  of  Jesus,  Prof.   Briggs;  First  Term,  Thurs.,  11 

A.  M. ;  elective  for  all  students. 

E.  The  Apostolic  Church,  Prof.  Briggs  ;  Second  Term,  Thurs.,  12  M. ;  elec- 

tive for  all  students. 


CHUKCH  HISTOKY. 


A  (1 )  History  I. :  History  of  Primitive,  Catholic  and  Protestant  Christianity, 
Prof.  McGiffert  ;  First  Term,  Mon.,  11  A.  M. ;  Wed.,  Fri.,  10  A.M.; 
variable,  Middlers  or  Seniors. 

A  (2)  History  II.:  Continuation  of  A  (1);  Second  Term,  Mon.,  11  A.  M. ; 
Wed.,  Fri.,  12  M. 

B  (1)  History  of  Christian  Doctrine  I.,  Prof.  McGiffert;  First  Term, 
Mon.,  Thurs.,  12  M.;  elective  for  all  students  except  Junioi-s. 

B  (2)  History  of  Christian  Doctrine  II.;  Continuation  of  B  (1),  Prof.  Mc- 
Giffert; Second  Term,  Mon.,  12  M.;  Fri,  10  A.  M.;  elective  for  all 
students  excejjt  Juniors. 

C.  History  of  the  Reformation  in  Western  Europe,  Prof.  McGiffert  ;  First 
Term,  Thurs.,  2.15  P.  M.;  elective  for  Seniors  and  Graduates. 


THE   COURSES  OF  STUDY.  349 

D.  Origin  and  History  of  the  Apostles'  Creed,  Prof.  McGiffert  ;  two  hours 
weekly  through  the  year  ;  Seminar  for  a  limited  number  of  Gradu- 
ates, Seniors  and  Middlers  of  high  standing,  after  personal  application 
to  the  professor. 


SYSTEMATIC  THEOLOGY. 

A  (1)  Dogmatics  I.:  The  System  of  Christian  Doctnne  ;  The  Christian  Doc- 
trine of  God,  and  of  tlie  World  ;  The  Kingdom  of  God,  Prof.  Wm. 
Adams  Brown  ;  First  Term,  Mon.,  11  A.  M.;  Wed.,  Fri.,  10  A.  M.; 
variable.  Seniors  or  Middlers. 

A  (2)  Dogmatics  II.:  Continuation  of  A  (1);  The  Person  and  Work  of 
Christ  ;  The  Trinity  ;  The  Christian  Doctrine  of  Man,  of  Sin,  and  of 
Salvation  ;  The  Christian  Doctrine  of  Redemption  ;  Second  Term,  Mon., 
11  A.  M.;  Wed.,  Fri.,  12  M. 

B.  Introduction  to  Dogmatics.     This  course  is  designed  as  an  introduction  to 

the  fuller  (dogmatic)  Course  A  (1)  and  (2),  and  will  discuss  such  prac- 
tical questions  as  the  idea  and  sources  of  Christian  Tlieology,  the  nature 
of  Revelation  and  Insjuration,  and  the  Authority  of  the  Scriptures, 
Prof.  Wm.  Adams  Brown;  First  Term,  Wed.,  Fri.,  12  M.;  elective 
for  all  students  except  Juniors ;  especially  recommended  to  Middlei-s. 

C.  The  Westminster  Standards.      (Informal  reading  and  discussion  of  selected 

passages  from  the  Westminster  Confession  and  Catechisms),  Prof.  Wm. 
Adams  Brown;  Second  Term,  Tues.,  10  A.  M. ;  Wed.,  11  A.  M.; 
elective  for  all  students  except  Juniore. 

D.  The  Doctrine  of  the  Person  of  Christ,  Prof.  Wm.  Adams  Brown  ;   two 

hours  weekly  througli  the  year ;  Seminar  for  a  limited  number  of  Grad- 
uates, Seniors  and  Middlers  of  high  standing,  after  iJCi-sonal  application 
to  the  professor. 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION,  APOLOGETICS  AND  ETHICS. 

A.  Philosophy  of  Eeligion. — Introductory,  the  Rev.  Georgj:  William  Knox, 

D.D. ;    First  Term,  Mon.,  Thui-s.,  10  A.  M.;  elective  for  all  students ; 
especially  recommended  to  Juniors. 

B.  Philosophy  of  Religion. — Historical  Development,  the  Rev.  George  Wil- 

liam Knox,  D.D. ;  Second  Term,  Mon.,  Thui-s,  IQ  A.  M.;  elective  for 
Middlers,  Seniors  and  Graduates. 

C.  Apologetics. — The  Conflict  with  Modern  Doubt  (not  given  in  1898-99). 

D.  ChriMian  Ethics. — The  Moral  Principles  of  Cliristianity,  and  their  Appli- 

cation to  Human  Life  and  Conduct  (not  given  in  1898-99). 

E.  Sociology. 


350  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

PRACTICAL  THEOLOGY. 

Homiletics  A  (1)  Introductory  instruction  as  to  Methods  of  Pulpit  Prepara- 
tion, with  practical  exercises,  Prof.  Hastings;  First  Term,  Mon.,  11 
A.  M. ;  required  of  Juniors. 

Homiletics  A  (2)  Lectures  with  Practical  Exercises,  Prof.  Hastings;  Plans 
of  (Sermons  are  submitted  not  only  for  criticism  by  the  cla.ss  but  also 
for  private  criticism  by  the  professor  ;  Second  Term,  Mon.,  9  A.  M.; 
required  of  Juniors  and  Middlers.  Thui-s.,  9  A.  M.,  required  of  Mid- 
dlers. 

Homiletics  B  (1)  Lectures  on  the  Composition  and  Delivery  of  Sermons,  with 
practical  exercises.  Prof.  Hastings  ;  Sermons  delivered  by  each  student 
both  in  private  and  before  the  class;  First  Term,  Tues.,  11  A.  M.; 
required  of  Seniors. 

Homiletics  B  {2)  Continuation  of  B  (1),  Prof.  Hastings;  Second  Term, 
Fri.,  11  A.  M. ;  required  of  Seniors. 

Homiletics  C.  Private  Criticism  of  Sermons,  through  the  year,  Prof.  Hastings  ; 
Mon.,  Tues.,  Thurs.,  Fri.,  2.30  to  3.30  P.  M.;  required  of  Seniors. 
Four  students  in  succession  each  week  take  their  sermons  to  the  profes- 
sor for  private  criticism.  At  least  two  sermons  must  be  thus  submitted 
during  the  year  by  each  member  of  the  class. 

Pastoral  Theology  A  (1)  Lectures  on  the  Calling,  Qualifications  and  Work  of 
the  Christian  Pastor  ;  on  Hymnology  and  Psalmody,  Prof.  Hastings  ; 
First  Term,  Thurs.,  9  A.  M.;  variable,  Middlers  or  Seniors. 

Pastoral  Theology  A  (2)  Continuation  of  A  (1),  Prof.  Hastings;  Second 
Term,  Tues.,  11  A.  M.;  variable,  Middlers  or  Seniors. 

Catechetics :  Principles  and  Methods  of  Religious  Teaching  for  Young  People, 
Pres.  Hall;  Second  Term,  Wed.,  10  A.  M.;  variable,  Middlere  or 
Seniors. 

Church  Polity :  The  New  Testament  Idea  and  Constitution  of  the  Church  of 
Christ :  the  ecclesiastical  polities  of  later  ages,  Pres.  Hall  ;  Second 
Term,  Thurs.,  11  A.  M.;  variable,  Middlers  or  Seniors. 

Missions  I. :  City  Evangelization  and  the  Institutional  Church,  Pres.  Hall  ; 
First  Term,  Thurs.,  12  M.;  elective  for  all  students. 

Missions  \\.:  Home  and  Foreign  Missions  in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  Pres. 
Hall;  Second  Term,  Tues.,  Fri.,  9  A.  M.;  recjuired  of  Juniors. 

Missions  \Yi.:  Geographical  Distribution  and  Race  Problems  of  Missions. 
Pres.  Hall  ;  Fii-st  Term,  Tues,  Fri.,  11  A.  M. ;  elective,  especially  for 
Middlers  (not  open  to  Juniors). 

Idturgics :  I. :  Historical  Forms  of  Christian  AVorshii) ;  II.:  Practical  Admin- 
istration of  Christian  Worship,  Pres.  Hall  ;  First  Term,  Wed.,  Fri., 
12  M. ;  elective  for  all  students  except  Juniore. 


THE   COURSES  OF  STUDY.  35I 

Conferefaces  on  the  Spiritual  Life  of  the  Minister  :  Themes  invited  from  students, 
Pres.  Hall  ;  Second  Term,  Thurs,  9  A.  M.;  elective  for  Seniors. 

Practical  Use  of  the  English  Bible  A  ( 1 )  The  International  Sunday-school 
Lessons,  Dr.  Fagnani  ;  First  Term,  Sat.,  9  A.  M. ;  elective  for  all 
students. 

Practical  Use  of  the  English  Bible  A  (2)  Continuation  of  A  (1);  Second  Term, 
Sat. ,  9  A.  M. ;  elective  as  above. 

Practical  Use  of  the  English  Bible  B.  Selections  from  the  Old  Testament  practi- 
cally expounded,  Dr.  Fagnani;  Second  Term,  Tues.,  3.15  P.  M. ; 
elective  for  all  students. 


VOCAL  CULTUKE. 


The  exercises  in  this  department  are  under  the  direction  of  Prof. 
Roberts.  They  are  obligatory,  unless  otherwise  stated,  but  do  not  count 
toward   the   required  number  of  lectures  specified. 

A.  Juniors. — The  class  is  divided  into  sections  ;  each  section  has  exercises 

once  a  week  for  the  developing,  strengthening  and  management  of  the 
voice,  and  in  the  principles  of  expression  in  elocution  as  applied  to  the 
reading  of  extracts  in  Prose  and  Verse  ;  Second  Term,  daily,  4.15  to 
6.15  P.  M. 

B.  Middlers  ( 1 ) — Exercises  in  the  reading  of    the  Scriptures  and  Hymns  ; 

each  section  once  a  week  ;  First  Term,  daily,  4.15  to  5.15  P.  M. 

C.  Middlers  (2) — Exercises  in  Pulpit  and    Platform  Speaking.     Individual 

drill  and  criticism  ;  Second  Term,  daily,  5.15  to  6.15  P.  M. 

D.  Seniors  (1) — Exercises  in    Pulpit  and  Platform   Speaking.      Individual 

drill  and  criticism  ;  First  Term,  daily,  5.15  to  6.15  P.  M. 

D.  Seniors  (2) — Continuation   of   D    (1)  ;    Second    Term,    daily,    at     hours 
privately  arranged. 


SACRED  MUSIC. 

The  exercises  in  this  department  are  under  the  direction  of  Prof.  Smith. 
They  are  obligatory,  unless  otherwise  stated,  but  do  not  count  toward  the 
required  number  of  lectures  specified.  Most  of  them  continue  through  the 
year. 

A.  Elementary  Class  (First  Term),  Thurs.,  5.15  to  6  P.  M. 

B.  Choir  Drill  and  Rehearsal,  Thurs.,  4  to  5  P.  M. 

C.  Solfeggi  Class,  Thurs.,  5  to  5.15  P.  M.  (First  Term). 

D.  Elementary  Class,  Section  I.,  Thurs.,  5.15  to  6  P.  M.  (Second  Term). 

E.  Elementary  Class,  Section  II.,  Fri.,  5.15  to  6  P.  M.  (Second  Term). 


352  '^ffE    UNION  THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

THE    LIBRARY,  GENERAL   CATALOGUE  AXD  THE  ALUMXI. 

BY  THE  REV.  CHARLES  RIPLEY   GILLETT,  D.D.,  L.H.D., 

LIBUARIAN. 

The  library  of  Union  Theology  Seminary  contains  an 
aggregate  of  about  one  hundred  and  fifteen  thousand  titles 
and  volumes.  It  stands  first  in  size  among  the  collections 
belonging  to  theological  seminaries  in  the  country,  and  tenth 
in  the  list  of  libraries  connected  with  educational  institutions. 
It  has  grown  by  purchase,  special  gift  and  the  endowment 
of  departments.  It  came  into  existence  almost  as  soon  as 
the  institution  itself,  and  it  has  continued  to  increase  with 
steady  growth  from  the  start,  in  spite  of  the  lack  of  an 
adequate   endowment. 

The  nucleus  of  the  library  was  formed  by  the  purchase 
of  the  Van  Ess  collection  in  1838.  This  collection  consisted 
originally,  it  is  said,  of  about  thirteen  thousand  volumes,  and 
it  has  been  characterized  by  Professor  T.  F.  Crane  of  Cor- 
nell University,  as  "the  most  valuable  library  which  has 
ever  been  brought  into  this  country."  The  beginning  of  the 
collection  is  to  be  traced  back  to  the  library  of  the  Bene- 
dictine Monastery  of  St.  Mary,  at  Paderborn,  where  it  con- 
stituted the  collection  of  Ubn  prokibitl  under  the  charge  of 
Brother  Leander  Van  Ess.  When  the  peace  of  Luneville,  in 
1801,  threatened  the  sequestration  of  the  property  of  the  relig- 
ious houses,  the  Benedictines  of  Paderborn  divided  the  books 
and  other  property  of  the  order  among  themselves  and  removed 
the  same  to  places  of  safety.  Van  Ess  went  to  Marburg,  where 
he  became  professor  of  theology  in  the  Roman  Catholic  faculty. 
Later  he  embraced  Protestantism,  and  devoted  himself  to  the 
translation  of  the  Bible  into  the  vernacular.     At  a  later  date 


THE  LIBRARY  AND   THE  ALUMNI.  353 

the  collection,  which  had  grown  much  in  the  interval  as  a 
result  of  later  studies,  was  offered  for  sale,  and  was  finally 
acquired  by  the  "  New  York  Theological  Seminary." 

The  collection  is  particularly  rich  in  Incunabula  or  "cradle- 
books,"  printed  before  1500,  when  the  art  of  the  printer 
was  in  its  infancy ;  in  patristic  literature  in  the  original 
editions,  and  in  the  early  collections  made  in  the  17th  and 
18th  centuries;  in  Roman  Catholic  theology,  liturgies.  Canon 
law,  and  Casuistry,  and  in  the  writings  of  Luther  and  other 
reformers  in  the  original  editions ;  in  early  German,  Latin, 
Greek,  Hebrew  and  Polyglot  editions  of  the  Bible  ;  in  the 
exegetical  works  produced  by  post-reformation  writers,  and 
printed  in  great  tomes ;  in  collections  of  councils  and  of  lives 
of  saints,  such  as  the  Acta  Sanctorum  ;  in  early  theological 
systems ;  and  in  the  German  theological  periodicals  of  the 
early  part  of  the  present  century.  Taken  in  its  entirety,  the 
collection  justifies  the  remark  of  the  eminent  specialist  quoted 
above. 

For  many  years  the  library  was  under  the  charge  of  the 
renowned  scholar  and  famous  professor.  Dr.  Edward  Robin- 
son. To  it  he  devoted  much  of  his  unbounded  enthusiasm, 
and  to  it  came,  after  his  death,  the  valuable  library  which  he 
had  gathered  in  the  pursuit  of  his  archaeological  and  exegeti- 
cal studies.  Next  it  passed  into  the  charge  of  the  late  Dr. 
Henry  B.  Smith,  professor  of  Systematic  Theology.  The  cat- 
alogue of  the  library,  which  has  survived  in  four  great  folio 
volumes,  is  a  maze  to  the  seeker  after  information,  and  the 
tradition  still  lingers  that  the  gifted  librarian's  wonderful 
memory  and  his  exhaustive  knowledge  of  the  treasures  under 
his  charge,  constituted  a  fiir  better  index  to  the  collections 
than  this  manuscri})t  catalogue  on  many  pages  and  in 
various  styles  of  handwriting. 

All    this   time   the    gi'owth    of  the    library    had   gone    on 


354  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

steadily.  During  Dr.  Smith's  incumbency,  the  late  Dr.  Ezra 
H.  Gillett,  had  given  much  pains  and  labor  to  the  increase 
of  the  department  of  British  theology  of  the  latter  part  of 
the  16th  and  the  early  portion  of  the  17th  centuries.  The 
result  of  this  labor  is  seen  to-day  in  an  almost  absolutely  com- 
plete collection  of  the  works  which  appeared  in  the  Deistic 
controversy,  and  in  an  almost  as  complete  representation  of 
the  Trinitarian  and  Non-Conformist  controversies.  It  was  by 
the  generosity  of  Mr.  David  H.  McAlpin,  that  the  gathering 
of  these  books  was  made  possible,  and  it  was  through  the 
efforts  thus  made  that  Mr.  McAlpin's  interest  in  the  library 
was  lastingly  aroused,  an  interest  which  led  in  1884,  to  the  en- 
dowment of  the  "  McAlpin  Collection  of  British  Theology  and 
History,"  and  the  "  Gillett  Collection  of  American  Theology 
and  History,"  by  that  generous  donor.  This  interest  was 
continued  after  the  death  of  Drs.  Gillett  and  Smith,  and  by 
it  Dr.  Charles  A.  Briggs,  who  succeeded  Dr.  Smith  as  libra- 
rian in  1876,  was  enabled  to  begin  the  acquisition  of  the  col- 
lection of  the  works  of  the  Westminster  and  Puritan  divines 
of  the  17th  century,  and  of  the  religious  and  controversial 
works  which  preceded  and  followed  the  period  of  the  West- 
minster Assembly,  which  are  so  essential  to  the  proper  com- 
prehension and  exposition  of  the  Presbyterian  standards, 
and  of  the  other  historical  documents  of  this  period  of 
British  history.  In  the  same  way  have  been  gathered  large 
and  valuable  collections  of  books  bearing  upon  the  early 
Baptist,  Brownist  and  Independent  connections,  and  upon 
the  Family  of  Love,  Muggletonians  and  other  sects.  The 
Roman  Catholic  controversies  of  the  16th  and  17th  cen- 
turies are  also  well  represented  by  many  scarce  books  and 
tracts.  The  importance  of  these  special  departments  may 
be  judged  by  the  fact  that  the  McAlpin  collection  is  third 
in    size    only    to    the    British     Museum    and    the    Bodleian 


THE  LIBRARY  AND    THE   ALUMNI.  355 

Library  so  far  as  the  first  two  thousand  titles  in  Dextcr's 
"  Bibliography  of  Congregationalism  "  are  concerned.  Tlie 
collection  will  ever  remain  as  a  lasting  monument  to 
the  enlightened  generosity  of  the  donor,  and  to  the  scholarly 
enthusiasm,  the  persistent  and  tireless  zeal,  the  wide  know- 
ledge and  the  deep  scholarship  of  Dr.  Briggs,  without  whom 
the  collection  could  never  have  been  made.  To-day  it 
stands  as  one  of  the  greatest  treasures  of  the  library  which 
it  adorns.  The  foregoing  collections  are  all  component  parts 
of  the  greater  collection  which  bears  Mr.  McAlpin's  name. 
But  besides  them  it  contains  also  a  large  number  of  general 
and  local  secular  histories  of  Great  Britain  and  its  parts ; 
the  most  important  histories  of  the  Churches  of  England, 
Scotland  and  Ireland ;  a  large  number  of  biographies,  and 
the  collected  works  of  British  divines  of  all  periods. 

The  Gillett  collection  of  American  Theology  and  History 
stands  as  another  monument  to  the  generosity  of  the  same 
donor,  and  to  the  memory  of  his  early  pastor  and  manhood's 
friend.  It  is  rich  in  general  and  bcal  histories,  both  secular 
and  ecclesiastical,  and  in  biography  in  all  its  phases  and 
branches.  Ecclesiastical  bodies  are  well  represented  by  large 
and  valuable  collections  of  minutes  and  proceedings,  and  the 
early  theological  controversies  of  New  England  can  be 
studied  in  the  original  writings  which  they  produced. 

Important  additions  were  made  also  to  the  pamphlet  de- 
partment of  the  library  through  the  efforts  of  Dr.  Gillett. 
Most  important  among  these  are  the  early  American  titles 
contained  in  the  extensive  collection  made  by  Dr.  David 
Dudley  Field,  which  constitute  a  veritable  mine  for  the  study 
of  early  American  religious  history.  In  this  branch  of  the 
library  are  also  the  collections  made  by  Dr.  Gillett,  Dr. 
Samuel  Hanson  Cox,  Dr.  William  B.  Sprague,  and  Dr.  John 
Marsh,  most  of  them  being  bound  in  book   form,  in  manilla 


356  'THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

paper  covers,  placed  there  by  Dr.  Gillett  himself.  This 
pamphlet  collection,  which  has  been  growing  steadily  for 
many  years,  and  Avhich  has  been  further  enriched  by  ])ur- 
chase  from  the  library  of  Dr.  Henry  B.  Smith,  and  by  gift 
from  the  families  of  Dr.  William  Adams,  and  Dr.  Edwin  F. 
Hatfield,  is  regarded  as  a  part  of  the  department  of  Ameri- 
can History  and  Theology,  and  is  named  in  honor  of  Dr. 
Gillett. 

Another  section  of  the  pamphlet  department  contains  a 
large  assortment  of  titles  from  the  17th,  18th  and  19th  cen- 
turies, bearing  upon  the  religious  controversies  and  history 
of  Great  Britain.  These  naturally  form  a  portion  of  the 
McAlpin  Collection,  and  are  so  counted.  Recent  purchases 
have  added  materially  to  the  collection  especially  in  the  later 
periods. 

When  Dr.  Briggs  became  librarian  in  1876,  he  at  once 
undertook  a  re-classification  of  all  departments,  and  began  a 
card  catalogue  which  has  grown  ever  since,  till  it  covers 
practically  all  the  books  in  the  library.  Under  his  successor 
the  work  in  both  departments  has  been  continued,  and  a 
subject  index,  corresponding  in  the  main  to  the  shelf  classi- 
fication of  the  library,  has  been  prepared.  This  catalogue 
resulted  in  more  than  doubling  the  use  of  the  library.  The 
original  classification  made  by  Dr.  Briggs  was  a  very  large 
task,  embodying  an  application  of  the  current  principles  of 
Theological  Encyclopaedia,  and  representing  an  advance  upon 
any  scheme  that  had  been  employed  previously  in  any  theo- 
logical library. 

The  most  notable  addition  to  the  library  in  its  more  re- 
cent history  was  that  from  the  library  of  the  late  Dr.  Edwin 
F.  Hatfield,  so  long  the  Stated  Clerk  of  the  General  Assem- 
bly of  the  Presbyterian  Church.  This  addition  Avas  rich  in 
many  departments,  particularly  in  Americana  and  periodicals. 


THE  LIBRARY  AND    THE  ALUMNI.  357 

It  was  the  richest  gift  ever  made  to  the  seminary  library, 
aggregating  about  seven  thousand  vohnnes.  A  considerable 
portion  of  the  books  was  incorporated  in  the  Gillett  collec- 
tion, and  the  rest  were  distributed  through  the  library  by 
topics,  in  accordance  with  the  settled  policy.  The  periodical 
department,  in  recognition  of  the  notable  additions  thus  made 
to  it,  deserves  to  be  called  in  honor  of  Dr.  Hatfield. 

When  the  construction  of  the  present  buildings  was  pro- 
posed, the  late  Governor  Edwin  D.  Morgan  endowed  the  library 
in  the  sum  of  one  hundred  thousand  dollars,  one-half  of  which 
was  expended  in  the  construction  of  the  library  building, 
and  the  other  half  was  retained  as  a  permanent  fund.  A 
further  addition  was  made  to  the  permanent  fund  by  the 
gift  of  twenty  thousand  dollars  by  the  late  Mrs.  Elizabeth 
Fogg  in  1892,  as  the  ''William  H.  Fogg  Memorial."  The 
income  of  this  fund  is  recommended  to  be  expended  for  the 
purchase  of  books,  pamphlets,  and  maps.  For  several  years 
past  the  fund  originally  subscribed  by  the  alumni  and  pro- 
fessors as  an  endowment  of  the  Reference  Library,  has  been 
known  as  the  "  Henry  B.  Smith  Memorial :  Philosophy," 
the  change  of  object  having  been  approved  by  the  Associated 
Alumni  of  the  seminary.  The  collection  for  which  it  is 
used  has  already  been  greatly  enriched  from  the  library  of 
Dr.  Smith,  thus  making  the  new  designation  of  the  fund 
particularly  appropriate.  The  fund  is  small  and  inadequate 
for  its  purpose,  but  so  far  as  it  goes  it  insures  a  steady 
growth  to  the  collection. 

Another  notable  feature  of  the  library  is  found  in  its 
hymnological  department.  This  was  a  result  of  growth 
through  many  years,  and  it  had  been  enriched  by  the  addi- 
tion of  many  volumes  bearing  the  names  of  Dr.  Robinson, 
Dr.  Hatfield,  and  others.  But  the  largest  addition  was  that 
of  the  library  of  Professor  Frederic  M.  Bird,  bought  through 


358  THE   UNION  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

the  liberality  of  the  late  Henry  Day,  Esq.,  prompted  by  Dr. 
Thomas  S.  Hastings.  The  combination  of  all  these  collec- 
tions resulted  in  the  exclusion  of  a  remarkably  small  num- 
ber of  duplicates,  and  constituted  a  department  of  over  five 
thousand  titles,  the  largest  collection  of  English  hymnology 
to  be  found  in  any  institution  in  the  land. 

The  general  library  of  the  seminary  is  divided  into  four 
main  divisions  in  accordance  with  the  current  scheme  of 
theological  classification.  The  department  of  Exegetical 
Theology  contains  valuable  works  which  represent  each  separ- 
ate topic  of  the  general  subject.  With  the  acquisition 
of  the  Van  Ess  collection  came  many  polyglots,  texts  and 
versions.  Within  the  past  year,  through  the  munificence  of 
Mr.  David  H.  McAlpin,  the  valuable  collection  of  Greek  Tes- 
taments, made  by  the  late  Dr.  Isaac  H.  Hall,  was  added  to  the 
library.  It  forms  a  unique  collection  of  about  eight  hundred 
volumes,  and  it  cost  the  collector  years  of  patient  and  untir- 
ing search.  In  the  departments  of  criticism  and  exegesis  the 
library  is  well  supplied,  both  with  the  older  and  newer  lit- 
erature. Here  again  the  name  of  Edward  Robinson  is  found 
upon  the  fly-leaves  of  many  volumes. 

The  Historical  Department  is  also  large  and  valuable, 
being  particularly  rich  in  the  matter  of  sources.  Patristic 
literature,  which  was  well  represented  in  the  Van  Ess  col- 
lection, has  been  supplemented  as  the  years  have  passed,  and 
it  now  constitutes  one  of  the  most  valuable  departments 
upon  our  shelves.  The  history  of  doctrine  occupies  consider- 
able space.  By  the  kindness  of  Charles  W.  Hassler,  Esq., 
the  library  came  into  possession  of  a  remarkable  collection 
of  books  bearing  upon  the  dogma  of  the  immaculate  concej)- 
tion  of  the  Virgin  Mary.  These  books  found  their  jilace  in 
the  department  of  the  history  of  Roman  Catholic  doctrine. 
The  library  also  contains  in  this  department  a  large  number  of 


THE  LIBRARY  AND   THE   ALUMNI.  359 

important  works  in  the  field  of  general  and  local  ecclesiastical 
and  secular  history,  with  many  numbers  in  the  field  of  Refor- 
mation history  and  literature.  The  writings  of  the  Reformers 
are  available  both  in  the  original  editions  and  in  the  scholarly 
collections  of  learned  societies  and  associations.  Oriental 
history  and  antiquities,  European  history  and  general  biogra- 
phy occupy  much  space. 

Systematic  theology  covers  a  number  of  cognate  topics  : 
symbolics,  polemics,  irenics,  apologetics,  the  systems  of  the 
various  confessions,  and  monographs  on  the  separate  doctrines. 
The  side-lights  upon  these  doctrines  are  cast  by  the  various 
controversies  which  have  rent  the  churches,  the  literary  re- 
sults of  which  are  classed  with  the  history  of  which  they 
are  a  part.  The  whole  collection  shows  evidences  of  the 
formative  hand  of  that  master  of  theological  science, 
Dr.  Henry  B.  Smith.  Unfortunately  the  department  has  not 
experienced  a  proportionate  growth  in  later  years.  Never- 
theless to  the  student  of  past  phases  of  theological  discus- 
sion as  well  as  of  present  problems  the  collection  is  most 
valuable. 

The  department  of  Practical  Theology  is  fairly  well  sup- 
plied. There  is  an  abundance  of  works  on  various  phases 
and  experiences  of  personal  religion,  but  the  most  used  por- 
tion deals  with  the  various  phases  of  the  activity  of  pastor 
and  preacher.  Homiletics  and  sermonic  literature,  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Church,  the  sacraments,  missions  and  applied 
Christianity  are  all  quite  well  represented,  but  they  are  by  no 
means  beyond  the  necessity  of  continued  growth. 

There  are  some  departments  in  which  the  library  needs 
to  be  supplemented,  and  the  necessity  is  sore.  Indeed,  the 
size  and  growth  of  the  collections  are  remarkable,  in  view  of 
the  meagreness  of  its  endowment.  An  income  is  demanded 
which  shall  enable  the  library  to  keep  abreast  of  the  latest 


360  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

and  best  literature,  and  which  shall  provide  also  for  efficient 
administration.  A  total  endowment  of  two  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  dollars  would  place  it  in  this  enviable  position  ;  its 
present  income  does  not  fully  cover  running  expenses  and 
fixed  charges. 

THE    GENERAL    CATALOGUE    AND    THE    ALUMNI. 

Within  the  past  year  the  third  general  catalogue  of  the 
seminary  has  appeared,  bringing  the  record  down  to  include 
the  class  of  1898.  The  first  was  prepared  by  Dr.  Edwin 
F.  Hatfield,  formerly  the  Stated  Clerk  of  the  General  As- 
sembly, and  was  published  in  1876.  The  second  appeared 
in  1886,  and  the  third  in  1898,  both  the  latter  being  the 
work  of  the  present  writer.  Appended  to  the  third  edition 
is  a  table,  showing  some  interesting  facts  in  regard  to  the 
student-body.  It  includes  the  classes  from  1837  to  1897, 
sixty-one    in  all. 

The  total  number  of  students  during  this  period  was 
2,896,  or,  including  the  class  of  1898  also,  2,955.  Of  these, 
1,836  (or,  with  the  class  of  1898,  1,871)  were  graduates  in 
the  regular  course,  and  1,060  (or  1,084)  were  partial  or 
special  course  students.  The  record  shows  the  decease  of 
817  ;  58  others  are  returned  as  "  unknown,"  that  is,  no  amount 
of  enquiry  has  sufficed  to  trace  them.  It  is  probable  that  at 
least  forty  of  them  are  dead,  bringing  the  total  necrological 
list  to  nearly  860.  This  would  indicate  that  about  2,100 
alumni  are  now  living. 

The  statistics  as  to  ordination  are  interesting  and  instruc- 
tive. Of  the  total  of  2,896  students,  431  never  were 
ordained,  83  of  them  having  died  at  so  early  an  age  as  to 
prevent  their  entry  into  the  ministry,  57  having  become  phy- 
sicians, 97  lawyers  and  38  business  men.  Tlie  58  "unknown" 
nearly  all  belong  here  also.      The  Presbyterian  Cliurch  (Old 


GENERAL   CATALOGUE  AND  ALUMNI.  361 

School)  received  69,  the  New  School,  514,  and  the  reunited 
Church,  735,  making  an  aggregate  of  1,318,  out  of  a  total  of 
2,465  ordained  men,  or  51^  per  cent.  The  other  Presby- 
terian Churches  received  110,  and  the  Reformed  Churches, 
98,  making  a  total  of  1,526  holding  the  Presbyterian  system; 
almost  62  per  cent.  There  were  691  who  went  into  the  Con- 
gregational Church  (a  little  over  28  per  cent.),  and  101 
entered  other  denominations  holding  the  Congregational 
polity,  making  a  total  of  792  such,  or  32  per  cent,  of  all. 
Up  to  1897,  Union  had  graduated  21  Lutherans,  59  Epis- 
copalians, 61  Methodists  and  6  Moravians. 

The  record  of  the  seminary  as  a  missionary  educator  is 
also  enviable.  The  record  sliows  that  no  less  than  209  were 
engaged  in  labor  under  one  or  other  of  the  various  Foreign 
Mission  Boards  or  other  agency.  This  was  a  total  of  almost 
8^  per  cent,  of  those  who  were  ordained.  As  a  trainer  of 
educators  it  holds  a  remarkable  place  also,  having  sent  out  no 
less  than  84  teachers  in  theological  seminaries,  72  college 
presidents,  196  college  professors,  105  principals  of  acade- 
mies or  superintendents  of  education,  and  124  teachers  in 
schools.  Many  of  these  had  been  ordained  and  had  engaged 
at  some  time  in  the  work  of  the  ministry. 

To  some  extent  the  quality  of  the  alumni  of  a  seminary 
is  indicated  by  the  learned  degrees  which  have  been  conferred 
upon  them.  The  doctorate  of  philosophy  belongs  to  92,  of 
divinity  to  444,  of  laws  to  44,  and  of  literature  to  10. 

The  list  of  abbreviations  shows  that  through  its  students, 
the  seminary  has  had  relations  with  about  250  institutions 
of  learning,  in  this  and  other  lands.  The  edition  of  the 
General  Catalogue,  issued  in  1886,  showed  that  over  91  per 
cent,  of  the  students  of  Union  had  had  college  training,  and 
it  is  probable  that  tlie  present  edition  would  not  have  shown 
any  lowering    of   the    proportion    if  the    statistics   had    been 


362  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

compiled.      In  fact  there  is  a  growing  tendency  to  raise,  not 
to  lower  the  requirements  and  the  projjortiou. 

In  his  preceding  volume,  "Fifty  Years  of  Uxiox 
Theological  Seminary "(  published  in  1889  ),  Dr.  Pren- 
tiss spoke  of  the  \\4de  distribution  of  the  original  homes 
of  the  members  of  the  student-body.  The  same  statement 
remains  true  to-day,  and  the  seminary  remains  constant  to 
its  name,  for  it  is  still  a  place  where  men  meet  from  all 
parts  of  the  United  States  and  of  the  world.  Irrespective  of 
storm  and  tumult  without,  and  unwounded  by  the  shafts 
leveled  at  it,  Union  is  a  place  of  studious  calm,  where  there 
is  that  union  with  God  and  man  wherein   is  strength. 

THE    INAUGURATION   OF   A  NEW  PRESIDENT- 
GLANCES  AT  THE  FUTURE. 

I  am  unwilling  to  close  this  narrative  without  an 
allusion  to  the  happy  auspices  under  which  Union 
Seminary  has  entered  its  seventh  decade,  and  will 
shortly  cross  the  threshold  of  another  century.  The 
growth  of  a  theological  seminary,  like  that  of  all  great 
educational  institutions,  is  largely  a  succession  of  new 
departures  and  involves  ever-increasing  cares,  perils 
and  responsibility ;  nor  is  anyone  wise  enough  to  fore- 
tell what  errors  or  false  steps  may  lie  hidden  in  the 
future.  The  transition  period  through  which  Union 
Seminary  has  been  j^assing  is  a  case  in  point.  Still, 
the  prospect  appears,  to  me  at  least,  to  be  bright  with 
promise.  We  are  saved  by  hope  :  but  hope  that  is  seen 
is  not  hope.  Distinct  signs  seem  already  to  foretoken 
what  the  future  is  likely  to  be ;    and  I  cannot  think 


INAUGURATION  OF  A   NEW  PRESIDENT.         303 

these  cheering  signs  are  going  to  prove  dehisive. 
The  inauguration  of  my  old  pupil  and  well-beloved 
friend,  Charles  Cuthbeet  Hall,  as  j^resident  of 
the  seminary  and  successor  to  my  chair,  with  some 
j)assages  from  his  address  on  the  occasion,  will  best 
show  what  they  are. 


THE    INAUGURATION    SERVICE. 

The  inauguration  of  the  Rev.  Charles  Cuthbert  Hall, 
D.D.,  as  Skinner  and  McAlpin  Professor  of  Pastoral  Theol- 
ogy, Church  Polity  and  Mission  Work  in  the  Union  The- 
ological Seminary,  and  president  of  the  facuky,  took  place, 
by  appointment  of  the  Board  of  Directors,  in  the  Adams 
Chapel,  on  Tuesday  evening,  February  8,  1898,  at  a  quarter 
past  eight  o'clock. 

The  procession  entered  the  chapel  in  the  following  order  : 
1.  Ushers.  2.  Choir,  followed  by  Dr.  Gerrit  Smith,  the 
musical  director.  3.  Faculty  of  the  seminary.  4.  Represen- 
tatives of  other  institutions.  5.  Directors  of  the  seminary. 
6.  Officiating  persons. 

The  representatives  of  other  institutions  present  were  : 

From  Columbia  University,  President  Seth  Low,  LL.D.; 
New  York  University,  Chancellor  Henry  M.  MacCracken, 
D.D.,  LL.D.;  Harvard  University,  Professor  Francis  G.  Pea- 
body,  D.D.,  and  Professor  J.  Winthrop  Platner,  M.A.;  Yale 
University,  Professor  Edward  L.  Curtis,  Ph.D.,  D.D,  ; 
Princeton  University,  Professor  Charles  W.  Shields,  D.D., 
LL.D. ;  Wesleyan  University,  Professor  Andrew  C.  Arm- 
strong, Jr.,  Ph.D.,  and  the  Rev.  Henry  A.  Starks,  D.D ; 
Cornell  University,  Professor  Charles  M.  Tyler,  D.D.;  Johns 
Hopkins  University,  Dean  Edward  H.  Griffin,  D.D.,  LL.D.; 


364  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

Williams  College,  President  Franklin  Carter,  LL.D.;  Rut- 
gers College,  Professor  Jacob  Cooper,  D.D.,  S.T.D.,  LL.D.; 
AVhitworth  College,  President  Calvin  AV.  Stewart,  D.D.; 
Vassar  College,  President  James  M.  Taylor,  D.D.,  LL.D.; 
Barnard  College,  Dean  Emily  James  Smith,  B.A.  ;  Auburn 
Theological  Seminary,  President  Henry  M.  Booth,  D.D., 
LL.D. ;  German  Theological  Seminary  of  Newark,  President 
Charles  E.  Knox,  D.D.,  and  Professor  Henry  J.  Weber, 
Ph.D.;  Hartford  Theological  Seminary,  President  Chester  D. 
Hartranft,  D.D. ;  Chicago  Theological  Seminary,  Professor 
Emeritus  George  N.  Boardman,  D.D.,  LL.D  ;  Pacific  Theo- 
logical Seminary,  President  John  K.  McLean,  D.D. ;  Drew 
Theological  Seminary,  President  Henry  A.  Buttz,  D.D.,  LL.D. 
The  Divinity  Schools  of  Harvard  University  and  Yale  Uni- 
versity were  represented,  respectively,  by  Professor  Platner, 
and  Professor  Curtis,  named  above. 

Courteous  messages  of  regret  were  received  from  many 
institutions. 

The  organ  voluntary  was  played  during  the  entrance  of 
the  procession  by  Mr.  R.  H.  Woodman,  organist  of  the 
First  Presbyterian  Church  of  Brooklyn,  whose  pastorate  Dr. 
Hall  resigned  to  accept  office  at  the  seminary.  At  its  con- 
clusion, the  hymn,  "The  Church's  One  Foundation,"  was 
sung  by  the  choir  and  congregation;  the  Scripture  lesson, 
Ephesians  iv:  1-16,  was  read  by  President  Franklin  Carter, 
LL.D.,  of  Williams  College;  after  this  Mr.  John  Crosby 
Brown,  vice-president  of  tlie  Board  of  Directors,  and  its 
acting  president  since  the  death  of  Charles  Butler,  LL.D., 
December  13,  1897,  spoke  as  follows: 

On  the  seventh  day  of  February,  1897,  the  Board  of  Direc- 
tors of  the  Union  Theological  Seminary  by  a  unanimous  vote 
elected  the  Rev.  Charles  Cuthbert  Hall,'  D.D.,  to  fill  the 
Skinner  and    McAlpin   Chair   of  Pastoral  Theology,  Church 


INAUGURATION  OF  A  NEW  PRESIDENT.         365 

Polity  and  Mission  Work,  made  vacant  by  the  resignation 
of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Prentiss.  At  the  same  time  and  by  the 
same  vote  they  elected  Dr.  Hall  to  the  presidency  of  the 
faculty,  made  vacant  by  the  resignation  of  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Hastings. 

Both  of  these  honored  professors  are  with  us  to-day,  Dr. 
Prentiss,  as  Professor  Emeritus,  enjoying  the  well-earned 
leisure  to  which  his  age  and  years  of  service  entitle  him,  and 
Dr.  Hastings,  relieved  at  his  own  request,  by  the  advice  of 
his  physician,  from  the  onerous  duties  of  president  of  the 
faculty,  but  retaining  and  discharging  with  unabated  vigor 
the  full  work  of  his  professorship. 

One  familiar  face  we  miss.  The  president  of  the  Board 
of  Directors,  the  late  Charles  Butler,  one  of  the  original 
founders  of  this  seminary,  its  devoted  friend,  counsellor  and 
benefactor,  who  was  spared  to  welcome  Dr.  Hall  to  his  new 
work  here,  was  taken  from  us  too  soon  to  preside  as  the 
official  representative  of  the  board  on  this  as  on  so  many 
other  similar  occasions  for  the  past  twenty-eight  years.  We 
m.ourn  his  absence  to-day. 

Under  ordinary  circumstances  the  inauguration  of  Dr. 
Hall  would  have  taken  place  last  autumn  at  the  opening  of 
the  term.  Gifts  of  friends,  however,  made  possible  some 
much  needed  improvements  to  the  seminary  buildings,  and 
the  completion  of  the  chapel  according  to  the  original  design 
of  the  architect,  which  contemplated  a  beautiful  and  appro- 
priate place  of  worshij)  and  a  memorial  worthy  of  the  man 
whose  name  it  bears. 

The  time  required  for  the  completion  of  this  work  neces- 
sitated the  postponement  of  this  service. 

Some  here  present  may  remember  the  old  chapel  on  Uni- 
versity Place,  cold,  forbidding  and  cheerless,  and  they  may 
also  remember  that  the  late  Dr.  William  Adams,  after  his 
election  as  professor  and  president  of  the  faculty,  at  once 
undertook,  through  the  liberality  of  a  friend,  its  reconstruction. 
Some  of  us  look  back  with  special  interest  to  those  occa- 
sions, when  professors,  students  and  friends  of  the  seminary 
met  with  graduating  class  in  that  renovated  chapel  for  a  last 


366  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

communion  service  before  entering  upon  their  life's  work. 
The  memory  of  those  services  lingers  with  us  still ;  they 
have  proved  an  inspiration  to  many  a  life. 

Standing  as  this  seminary  does,  and  as  I  believe  always 
M'ill,  for  thorough  scholarship,  and  aiming  to  give  its  stu- 
dents the  best  and  highest  intellectual  training,  I  think  I 
may  venture  to  say  for  my  colleagues  in  the  board,  that  we 
hope  that  this  chapel  may  become  to  all  connected  with  this 
institution — directors,  professors,  teachers,  students,  and  even 
to  the  neighborhood — a  house  of  God  and  a  very  gate  of 
Heaven,  and  that  the  services  held  here,  where  all  will  be 
cordially  welcomed,  whether  morning  prayer,  Sunday  service 
or  the  communion  services  with  the  graduating  classes,  may 
bring  us  all  into  closer  fellowship,  and  above  all  into  closer 
personal  touch  with  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ, 
without  Whose  presence  here  all  the  beauty  and  outward 
adornment  of  this  chapel  and  all  its  services  will  be  utterly 
valueless. 

Prayer  was  then  offered  by  the  Rev.  Henry  Van  Dyke, 
D.D.,  of  New  York  City. 

Mr.  John  Crosby  Brown   then  spoke  further,  as  follows  : 

The  constitution  of  this  seminary  requires  each  professor 
when  entering  U])on  the  duties  of  his  chair,  and  periodically 
thereafter,  to  make  a  certain  declaration  prescribed  by  that 
instrument.  I  now  call  upon  the  Rev.  Dr.  Hall  to  make 
the  constitutional  declaration. 

Thereupon  Dr.  Hall  made  the  declaration,  as  follows : 

In  the  presence  of  God  and  of  the  directors  of  this  semi- 
nary, I  solemnly  affirm  that  I  believe  the  Scriptures  of  the 
Old  and  New  Testaments  to  be  the  Word  of  God,  the  only 
infallible  rule  of  faith  and  practice ;  that  I  receive  and 
adopt  the  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith,  in  all  the  essen- 
tial and  necessary  articles  thereof,  as  containing  the  system 
of  doctrine  taught  in  Holy  Scripture  ;   that  I  ajiprove  of  the 


INAUGURATION  OF  A   NEW  PRESIDENT.         367 

principles  of  the  Presbyterian  Form  of  Government;  and 
that  I  will  not  teach  anything  which  shall  appear  to  me  to 
be  subversive  of  the  said  system  of  doctrine,  or  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  said  Form  of  Government,  so  long  as  I  con- 
timie  to  be   a  professor  in  this  seminary. 

Mr.  John  Crosby  Brown  then  said  : 

Having  been  elected  by  the  Board  of  Directors  a  pro- 
fessor in  this  seminary  and  president  of  the  faculty,  and 
having  made  in  this  public  manner  the  declaration  required 
by  the  constitution,  on  behalf  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of 
the  Union  Theological  Seminary  I  now  pronounce  the  Rev. 
Charles  Cuthbert  Hall,  D.D.,  duly  inaugurated  as  Skinner 
and  McAlpin  Professor  of  Pastoral  Tlieology,  Church  Polity, 
and  Mission  AVork,  and  president  of  the  faculty,  and  as 
such  entitled  to  discharge  all  the  duties  of  these  respective 
offices  in  this  seminary. 

Mr.  Brown  added  : 

It  is  the  custom  of  this  board  to  appoint  one  of  its  own 
members  to  deliver  on  its  behalf  a  charge  to  a  professor  at 
his  inauguration.  Acting  upon  the  authority  conferred  upon 
them  by  the  board,  the  executive  committee  has  asked  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Hastings  to  deliver  the  charge  to  Dr.  Hall. 

Technically,  this  appointment  is  slightly  irregular.  At 
the  present  time  Dr.  Hastings  is  not  a  member  of  the 
board,  having  declined  to  allow  us  to  retain  him  as  a  mem- 
ber of  our  body,  lest  thereby  a  precedent  might  be  estab- 
lished that  might  possibly  embarrass  this  institution  in  the 
future.  We  could  not,  however,  release  him  from  the  duty 
of  representing  us  this  evening,  and  he  will  now  deliver  the 
charge  to  Dr.  Hall. 

The  charge  was  then  delivered  by  the  Rev.  Professor 
Thomas  S.  Hastings,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  L.H.D.,  former  presi- 
dent of  the  faculty. 


368  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

Thereupon  the  inaugural  address  was  delivered  by  the 
Rev.  Charles  Cuthbert  Hall,  D.D. 

At  its  conclusion  a  hymn,  "  We  give  Thee  but  Thine 
own,"  was  sung  by  the  choir  and  congregation ;  prayer  was 
offered  and  the  benediction  pronounced  by  the  Rev. 
Professor  Francis  G.  Peabody,  D.D.,  of  Harvard  University, 
and  the  procession  retired  during  an  organ  voluntary  by  Dr. 
Gerrit  Smith. 

II. 

CHAEGE. 

BY   THE   REV.    PROFESSOR    THOMAS    S.    HASTINGS,   D.D.,    LL.D.,  L.H.D. 

On  behalf  of  the  Board  of  Directors  I  am  called  upon 
to  address  you,  my  brother,  in  recognition  of  the  important 
office  you  will  henceforth  occupy. 

First  of  all,  permit  me  to  congratulate  you  upon  the  sin- 
gular unanimity  with  which  you  were  called  to  the  presi- 
dency of  the  faculty.  No  other  name  than  yours  was  con- 
sidered in  the  board  or  mentioned  in  the  faculty.  A  common 
conviction  and  a  common  feeling  seemed  at  once  to  possess 
all  minds  and  hearts.  We  feel,  and,  I  am  sure,  you  feel 
that  the  hand  of  Providence  was  peculiarly  clear  in  the  mat- 
ter from  the  beginning.  This  is  a  great  comfort  to  us  all 
and  should  be  also  a  great  comfort  to  you.  If  God  has 
called  you,  as  we  all  believe,  to  this  high  trust.  He  will  cer- 
tainly help  you  to  fulfill  its  obligations. 

Let  me  congratulate  you,  also,  upon  the  turn  of  your  in- 
duction into  the  presidency.  The  autonomy  and  position  of 
this  seminary  have  been  secured :  its  self-governing  power 
and  its  catholic  independence  have  been  settled  ;  and  now 
"forgetting  those  things  which  are  behind,"  we  are  all,  with 
one  heart,  "  reaching  forth  unto  those  things    Avhicli   are   be- 


INAUGURATION  OF  A   NEW  PRESIDENT.         369 

fore."  We  are  eager  to  enrich  our  curriculum,  and  in  every 
way  to  enlarge  and  to  improve  our  work.  The  beautiful 
catholicity,  which  has  characterized  this  institution  from  the 
beginning  up  to  this  sixty-second  year  of  its  life,  is  demand- 
ing a  fuller  expression  than  that  of  open  doors  as  toward 
students  of  all  denominations  of  Christians.  We  look  and 
long  for  a  theological  university,  broad  and  comprehensive, 
which  shall  be  the  natural  evolution  of  the  spirit  and  aim 
of  our  honored  founders. 

Our  doctrinal  basis  must  and  will  be  maintained  invio- 
late. We  are  anchored  to  the  Westminster  Confession  of 
Faith,  though  some  of  us  deeply  regret  that  it  was  not  re- 
vised when  two-thirds  of  the  church  desired  revision.  Yet, 
while  holding  to  that  confession,  and  held  by  it,  we  receive 
on  equal  terms  students  of  every  denomination  of  Christians, 
and  must  provide  for  them,  as  our  charter  says  "Equal 
privileges  of  admission  and  instruction,'^  and  this  cannot  really 
be  done  unless  our  institution  expands  into  a  true  theological 
university.  The  way  seems  to  me  to  be  opening  before  you, 
my  brother,  for  such  expansion.  It  may  not  be  effected  at 
once,  but  the  morning  glow  is  already  gilding  our  horizon, 
and,  though  I  may  not  live  to  see  the  noontide  splendor,  I 
trust  devoutly  that  this  may  be  your  high  and  happy  priv- 
ilege. What  we  want  is  not  revolution,  but  only  evolution. 
One  of  the  finest  mills  in  the  British  manufacturing  districts 
is  the  oldest.  The  machinery  has  always  been  kept  even 
with  the  progress  of  improvement  and  of  invention  ;  and  yet 
the  mill  has  never  been  closed  for  a  single  day.  The  pro- 
prietor explains  it  thus :  "  I  am  always  altering,  but  never 
changing."  Always  altering,  but  never  changing;  that  is  the 
true  progressive  method.  We  cannot  be  content  witli  what 
has  been  accomplished  ;  we  must  move  on  to  higher  and  bet- 
ter things ;    progress    is    the    necessity  of  healthy  life.      Our 


370  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL    SEMINARY. 

teaching  should  be  as  broad  as  our  charter  is,  and  as  com- 
prehensive and  catholic  as  is  our  student  body,  within  which 
are  always  found  representatives  of  all  the  Evangelical 
churches.  God  forbid  that  we  should  try  to  make  them  all 
Presbyterians.  To  make  a  good  Methodist  or  Baptist  into  a 
poor  Presbyterian  would  be  a  dreadful  waste  of  consecrated 
force,  besides  being  a  dishonorable  betrayal  of  our  high 
trust.  We  must  aim  only  to  make  our  students  better  in 
and  for  their  respective  denominations  than  they  can  be  made 
anywhere  else.  We  scorn  the  low  work  of  proselyting,  and 
aim  only  at  the  high  and  holy  work  of  a  truly  Christian 
education, — scholarly,  spiritual,  practical  and  catholic.  We 
delight  always  to  stimulate  our  students  to  think  for  them- 
selves, only  with  such  guidance  and  help  as  we  may  be 
enabled  to  give  them.  We  crave  the  free  development  of 
sacred  and  consecrated  individuality.  Traditions  and  con- 
ventionalities and  shibboleths  in  Union  Seminary  have  always 
been  put  aside,  that,  in  the  love  of  the  truth,  we  may  all  be 
emancipated  from  every  kind  of  small  and  degrading  bond- 
age, and  so  may  study  God's  Holy  Word  Avith  reverent  and 
open  hearts,  and  with  free,  trained  and  enlightened  minds. 
I  know,  my  brother,  that  you  are  in  cordial  sympathy  with 
this  controlling  and  characteristic  spirit  of  our  seminary  life, 
and  I  am  sure  that  you  will  seek  to  promote  its  unbroken 
continuance. 

Permit  me  also  to  congratulate  you  that  you  are  called 
to  preside  over  a  united  faculty.  Of  course  I  do  not  mean 
to  say  that  we  always  think  alike  on  every  question  which 
comes  before  us :  each  one  of  us  thinks  his  own  thought  and 
speaks  his  own  word  frankly  and  freely.  We  are  decidedly 
finite  men,  and  so  we  differ  and  discuss  ;  but  we  are  united 
by  strong  and  delightful  ties,  and  we  reach  our  conclusions 
harmoniously,  and  we  stand  by  one  another  and  by  our  pres- 


INAUGURATION  OF  A   NEW  PRESIDENT.         37 1 

ident  with  affectionate  loyalty.  The  faculty  is  accustomed  to 
being  considered  and  consulted  in  all  things  which  pertain  to 
the  Avelfare  and  the  growth  of  the  seminary ;  but  you  may 
be  assured  that  they  will  right  loyally  sustain  you,  and  faith- 
fully honor  your  leadership.  After  nine  years  of  experience, 
I  say  to  you, —  you  can  trust  them,  and  the  more  you  trust 
them,  the  more  can  they  and  will  they  help  you. 

Again,  I  congratulate  you  that  you  have  with  you  a  united 
Board  of  Directors,  composed  of  the  noblest  collection  of 
men  with  whom  it  has  ever  been  my  privilege  to  work.  I 
cannot  think  or  speak  of  them  Avithout  deep  emotion  and  a 
thrill  of  enthusiasm.  They  have  proved  their  love  for  this 
seminary  by  a  noble  and  a  generous  devotion  to  its  best  and 
highest  interests.  I  am  sure  that  Dr.  Adams  and  Dr.  Hitch- 
cock, if,  from  out  the  great  cloud  of  witnesses,  they  could 
speak  to  you  to-night,  would  join  me  in  saying — You  can 
trust  this  board ;  they  will  support  you  to  their  uttermost 
ability  in  all  your  efforts  to  promote  the  welfare  and  the 
growth  of  this  seminary.  They  will  carefully  guard  the  finan- 
cial interests  of  the  institution,  and  if  they  do  not  always 
move  as  fast  as  you  could  wish,  be  assured  that  they  will 
move  as  fast  as  they  can,  and  as  fast  as  is  best.  I  doubt 
whether  there  is  an  educational  institution  in  the  country 
whose  finances  have  been  managed  with  such  consummate 
skill  and  success  as  have  the  finances  of  this  seminary.  You 
should  be  happy  that  you  have  with  you  such  wise  and  such 
safe  supporters.  Progress  and  enlargement  or  expansion  re- 
quire money,  and  that  necessity  is  a  constant  and  a  painful 
limitation.  Unfortunately  this  seminary  has  the  reputation 
of  being  wealthy,  and  that  misapprehension  needs  to  be  cor- 
rected before  we  can  hope  to  receive  such  gifts  as  our  plans 
and  hopes  require.  When  the  Lord's  stewards  know  that  this 
institution  is  really  poor,  and  can  improve  and  expand,  grow 


372  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

better  and  more  useful,  only  as  fast  and  fiir  as  the  noble  gener- 
osity of  the  friends  of  sacred  learning  will  permit,  then  we  shall 
have  the  help  we  need.  All  good  educational  institutions,  are 
always  wanting  money  ;  they  are  perennially  poor  because  they 
are  good,  and  are  so  eager  to  do  better.  But  we  must  be 
thankful  for  the  past,  and  try  hard  to  be  patient  for  the  present. 
In  all  our  forward  movements  you,  my  brother,  are  to  be 
our  leader.  May  you  be  enabled  to  lead  us  wisely  and 
safely.  A  passenger  on  one  of  our  coastwise  steamers  said 
to  the  veteran  pilot  at  the  helm, — "  I  suppose  you  know 
where  every  rock  is,  and  every  sand-bar  on  this  coast." 
"  No,"  said  the  pilot,  "  but  I  know  where  they  are  not." 
We  believe  you,  my  brother,  know  where  the  rocks  and  the 
sand-bars  are  not,  and  we  trust  you  to  steer  our  course  just 
THERE  !  We  have  no  desire  to  hunt  for  rocks  or  sand-bars  ! 
You  have  already  made  your  mark  upon  our  seminary 
life.  You  are  aiming  to  get  near  to  the  student-body  and 
to  reach  its  heart.  You  will  do  it.  The  students  Avill 
love  you  because  you  love  them.  You  are  aiming  to  pro- 
mote their  spiritual  development,  and  to  prepare  them  for 
practical,  divine  and  human  service.  You  are  seeking  to 
cultivate  among  our  students  a  high  Christian  manliness, 
which  will  fit  them  to  command  the  respect  and  to  Avin  the 
love  and  the  confidence  of  those  to  whom  they  will  be 
called  to  minister.  The  amplitude  and  the  comprehensive- 
ness of  the  Skinner  and  McAlpin  chair,  which  you  occupy, 
will  give  yoH  abundant  opportunity  to  carry  out  your  high 
purpose,  and  to  realize  your  cherished  ideal.  Permit  me  to 
assure  you  that  in  all  this  you  will  have  the  cordial  co- 
operation of  the  faculty,  as  well  as  the  earnest  and  the 
prayerful  sympathy  of  the  directors.  May  God  bless  you, 
my  dear  brother,  and  endue  you  richly  with  His  grace,  for 
the  high  and  holy  service  upon  which  you  have  entered. 


INAUGURATION  OF  A   NEW  PRESIDENT.         373 

III. 
PASSAGES    FROM    THE    INAUGURAL    ADDRESS. 

Union  Seminary  has  exercised  an  engaging  fascination 
over  the  minds  that  have  known  it  best.  It  is  donbtful  if 
any  institution  of  theology  was  ever  more  beloved  of  men. 
A  singular  charm  of  perpetual  youth  and  freshness  abides 
upon  it.  The  years  of  its  history  multiply,  yet  it  grows 
not  antiquated  and  feeble.  It  renews  its  youth.  It  keeps 
pace  with  the  changing  thought  of  the  changing  generations, 
that  it  may  the  better  bear  witness  to  Him  Who  through  all 
changes  is  the  same  yesterday,  and  to-day  and  forever.  It 
turns  itself  hopefully  to  the  new  problems  of  the  new  times, 
that  it  may  help  men  to  hold  with  braver  hearts  the  foith 
once  for  all  delivered  to  the  saints.  It  seeks  to  understand 
the  thought  and  the  temper  of  the  current  age  that  it  may 
exalt  amidst  new  conditions  the  eternal  and  indestructible 
Gospel  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

As  to-night,  I  seem  to  stand  where  two  ways  meet,  look- 
ing backward  over  two  generations  of  the  seminary's  history, 
and  forward  into  a  new  time  throbbing  with  new  and  vast 
problems — problems  that  involve  the  most  precious  interests 
of  the  Church  of  Christ  and  the  moral  health  and  safety  of 
society,  I  need  not  attempt  to  conceal  the  profound  and 
sacred  solicitude  that  fills  my  mind  as  I  ask  myself:  To 
this  new  time,  with  its  new  interests  and  its  new  problems, 
in  what  relation  shall  this  seminary  stand  ?  Shall  it  be  but 
as  a  surviving  institution  of  the  past,  honored  and  loved  for 
the  good  it  has  done,  cherished  still  for  the  unworldly  calm 
of  age  that  shall  brood  over  it,  but  bearing  no  real  relation 
to  the  thought  struo-o-les  of  the  twentieth  centurv,  and  to 
those  social  movements  of  Christianity  that  arc  even  now 
advancing  as   in  a  mighty  crusade   of  love   to   grapple    with 


374  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

the  sorrows  and  the  oppressions  and  the  ignorances  of  the 
human  race  ?  Shall  this  seminary  in  that  new  time,  the 
thunder  of  whose  coming  is  in  our  ears  like  the  boom  of 
the  rising  tide,  be  but  a  seat  of  cloistered  repose,  or  shall 
it  be  a  centre  of  power  consecrated  to  the  service  of 
humanity?  Questions  like  these  fill  my  soul  as  I  stand  to- 
night at  the  parting  of  the  ways.  This  is  not  an  hour  in 
which  it  is  given  me  to  make  any  official  announcement  of 
the  means  and  methods  by  which  the  expansion  of  the  semi- 
nary is  to  be  accomplished,  and  I  make  no  such  announce- 
ment. But  speaking  as  one  whose  love  was  long  since 
given  to  this  seminary  and  whose  life  is  now  given  for 
whatsoever  form  or  duration  of  service  it  may  please  God  to 
indicate,  it  is  my  privilege,  if  not  my  duty,  to  describe  an 
expansion  of  the  seminary  which  would  be  at  once  concur- 
rent with  the  ideals  of  the  founders  and  adapted  to  some 
great  needs  and  great  opportunities  of  the  times  into  which 
we  are  moving.  Circumstances  may  postpone  for  a  season 
the  accomplishment  of  this  expansion  (I  pray  God  it  may 
not  be  long  postponed !),  I  may  not  survive  to  see  upon  the 
earth  the  fruition  of  this  fond  desire ;  nevertheless  I  would 
record  myself,  in  this  hour  which  binds  me  to  this  work, 
as  having  believed  these  things,  hoped  these  things,  and  (so 
far  as  one  man  may  do)  as  laboring  to  accomplish  these 
things.  Not  that  the  lines  of  expansion  I  am  about  to 
indicate  are  devised  by  myself :  not  that  I  am  the  author  of 
this  scheme  of  expansion — some  of  the  features  of  which 
have  been  for  years  discussed  by  my  colleagues  in  the 
faculty  and  in  the  board,  and  I  doubt  not  by  others.  But 
there  is  a  sense  in  which  one  who  gives  his  life  to  an 
undertaking  appropriates,  incorporates  as  of  the  very  sub- 
stance of  his  own  thought,  affirms  as  the  true  expression  of 
his  own  mind,  the  principles  and    ideals   to   which    he    unre- 


INAUGURATION  OF  A   NEW  PRESIDENT.         375 

servedly  commits  himself.  In  such  a  sense  I  speak  of  the 
expansion  of  the  seminary,  committing  myself  to  that  ideal 
in  all  fullness  of  faith,  in  all  seriousness  of  hope  and  expec- 
tation. But  this  ideal  whereof  I  speak  is  not  the  pleasure- 
able  dream  of  an  unsanctified  ambition,  seeking  great  things 
for  the  sake  of  worldly  glory  ;  it  is  not  the  vain  conceit  of 
an  unspiritual  rivalry,  straining  to  outdo  its  competitors  in 
the  field  of  theological  discipline — this  ideal  is  but  the  yearn- 
ing hope  that  in  the  time  to  come  this  honorable  foundation, 
over  which  the  prayers  and  labors  of  the  holy  dead  were 
lavishly  expended,  may  still  be  worthy  of  Christ's  use,  and 
fruitful  of  good  in  the  great  world  for   which  Christ  died. 

The  expansion  of  the  seminary  presents  itself  to  my 
mind  not  as  a  one-sided  development,  an  overgrowth  in  one 
direction,  but  as  an  expansion  on  every  side,  a  quadrilateral 
expansion.  For  there  are  four  lines  which  are  susceptible 
of  an  extension  perfectly  concurrent  with  the  plans  of  the 
founders  and  with  the  constitutional  rights  and  liberties  of 
the  institution. 

There  is  the  Academic  Line.  There  is  the  University  Ex- 
tension Line.  There  is  the  Line  of  Social  Service.  There 
is  the  Line  of  Spiritual  Power.  This  is  a  quadrilateral 
which  would  represent  an  immense  expansion  of  the  semi- 
nary, but  which  would  not  by  one  jot  or  tittle  deflect  the 
plans  of  those  wise  and  far-seeing  men  to  whose  courage, 
generosity,  and  faith  the  seminary  owes  its  existence.  This 
expansion  would  indeed  bring  the  seminary  into  close  and 
irenic  relation  with  the  various  branches  of  the  Christian 
Church,  but  it  would  not  weaken  nor  change  in  any  way  its 
relation  to  that  particular  branch  of  the  Church,  in  the  com- 
munion of  which  the  founders  lived  and  died.  This  expan- 
sion would  indeed  bring  the  seminary  into  warm  and  prac- 
tical touch  with  some  of  those  most  broad   and  most  earnest 


376  ^-^^    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

sociological  movements  which  are  seeking  to  purge  and  up- 
lift and  bless  with  gladness  the  lives  of  the  poor,  but  it 
would  not  confuse  nor  obscure  in  any  way  the  chief  end  of 
the  founders  which  was,  to  use  their  own  language,  "to 
furnish  a  competent  supply  of  well-educated  and  pious  min- 
isters of  the  Gospel."  This  expansion  would  indeed  bring 
this  seminary  nearer  perhaps  than  it  has  ever  been  to  the 
spiritual  life  of  the  community  at  large  ;  would  involve  it, 
more  perhaps  than  it  has  ever  been  involved,  in  the  respon- 
sibility of  offering  the  comforts  and  encouragements  of 
worship  to  human  souls ;  would  emphasize  more  strongly 
perhaps  than  has  ever  been  emphasized  the  supreme  neces- 
sity for  an  ardent,  profound  and  progressive  spiritual  expe- 
rience in  students  for  the  ministry ;  but  nothing  in  this 
spiritual  expansion  would  diminish,  by  so  much  as  the  least 
degree,  the  height  and  stability  of  that  academic  standard 
which  from  the  first  days  until  now  has  been  the  honorable 
and  continuous  tradition  of  this  seat  of  learning. 

In  language  which  shall  be  as  calm  as  may  be  when  the 
heart's  love  is  uttering  itself  with  the  mind's  conviction,  I 
shall  endeavor  in  this  closing  portion  of  my  address  to 
describe  the  nature  of  this  expansion  upon  what  I  have 
called  the  lines  of  the  Quadrilateral. 

1.  The  Academic  Line.  To  me,  who  am  but  the  hum- 
blest student  of  contemporary  thought  and  feeling  within 
the  Church  of  Christ,  the  time  seems  ripe  for  a  noble  and 
irenic  extension  of  the  academic  work  of  this  .  seminary. 
Two  influences,  beneficent  and  broadening,  appear  to  be  at 
work  in  tiie  minds  of  many  men  who  having  finished  their 
earlier  courses  are  thoughtfully  engaging  in  post-graduate 
study  ;  or  who,  whether  by  choice  or  by  necessity,  having 
gone   into    the   pastorate   are  eagerly    and  anxiously    ponder- 


INAUGURATION  OF  A   NEW  PRESIDENT.         377 

ing,  in  the  scant  leisure  of  their  daily  round,  problems  of 
belief  and  problems  of  Christian  brotherhood.  One  of 
these  influences  is  theological  and  ethical — the  other  is 
ecclesiastical.  Theological  and  ethical  thought  in  the 
minds  of  the  younger  ministry  is  to-day  like  the  full, 
swift,  impetuous,  torrent  of  a  springtide  flood,  when  the  ice 
gorge  is  broken  and  the  stream  runs  free.  It  is  a  great 
and  glorious  time  wherein  to  be  young,  Avherein  to  be  stand- 
ing on  the  thi'eshold  of  one's  ministry,  or  to  have  moved 
but  a  little  way  along  its  course.  The  Christianity  of  the 
cross  is  being  seen  in  new  light — which  is  also  old  light — 
the  light  of  the  knowledge  of  the  glory  of  God  in  the  face 
of  Jesus  Christ.  New  co-ordinations  are  being  made  of 
truth  with  life,  of  life  with  truth ;  the  Gospel,  fresh  with 
eternal  youth,  is  vindicating  its  power  to  deal  with  social 
difficulties,  and  everywhere  young  men  of  consecration  are 
awaking  to  the  thought  that  he  who  holds  the  truth  holds 
power  if  he  but  learn  to  use  the  truth  aright. 

Ecclesiastical  thought  in  young,  brave  and  unfettered 
minds  is  also  like  the  springtide  flood  speeding  into  sun- 
light below  the  gloomy  gorge.  The  Church  of  which  the 
one  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  God  of  God,  Light  of  Light  is  the 
sovereign  and  enthroned  head  is  awaking  to  conceive  of  her 
own  oneness  in  Him.  From  remotely  separated  points  of 
view,  on  lines  sometimes  deflected,  it  may  be,  by  prejudice 
or  by  un-wisdom,  yet  with  hearts  glowing  in  the  warmth  of 
truly  Christian  purpose  many  younger  men  are  following 
many  older  men  in  love's  unconquerable  search  for  a  self- 
revelation  to  the  whole  Church  of  her  own  essential  oneness 
in  the  one  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Men  of  various  polities  are 
vearniuff  for  a  better  understandino;  of  one  another. 

I  believe  that  for  these  post-graduate  men  and  for  these 
young  pastors,  upon  whom  the  theological   and   ecclesiastical 


378  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

progress  of  the  time  is  bringing  a  new  sense  of  the  value  of 
calm  and  careful  study  of  these  mighty  themes,  the  semi- 
nary may,  by  an  expansion  of  its  scope  upon  the  academic 
line,  provide  an  incalculable  blessing.  By  establishing  a 
series  of  University  lectureships  outside  the  faculty,  and  by 
appointing  to  those  lectureships,  in  accordance  with  its  well- 
known  constitutional  right,  representatives  of  the  various 
branches  and  polities  of  the  Christian  Church,  who  in  the 
spirit  not  of  controversy  but  of  peace  shall  luminuosly  pre- 
sent the  history  and  the  distinctive  principles  of  their  respec- 
tive polities ;  by  providing  other  lectureships  for  the  most 
advanced  study  of  Christian  ethics,  canon  law*  symbolics  and 
comparative  religion,  the  seminary  can  meet  and  answer 
comprehensively,  irenically,  and  on  the  highest  grade  of 
academic  discipline,  that  fundamental  need  of  a  clearer  faith, 
a  more  intelligent  ethics,  a  more  catholic  and  Christlike 
churchmanship,  of  which  all  over  the  land  many  of  our 
finest  and  ablest  men  are  conscious. 

2.  The  University  Extension  Line.  "  University  Ex- 
tension "  has  become  a  technical  term  in  the  modern 
educational  system.  As  applied  to  the  college  and  to  the 
university,  it  signifies  the  arrangement  of  special  lectures 
outside  of  the  ordinary  curriculum,  by  means  of  which  a 
measure  of  collegiate  advantage  is  supplied  to  those  who, 
for  any  reason,  cannot  have  the  privilege  of  collegiate  train- 
ing. As  applied  to  the  theological  seminary,  "  University 
Extension "  would  mean  the  sharing  with  lay- workers 
of  those  advantages  of  Bible  study  and  other  preparation 
for  Christian  usefulness  which  are  secured  to  ministers  by 
the  ordinary  curriculum.  With  new  intensity  and  a  fresh 
baptism  of  social  love  the  Church  is  everywhere  making  a 
practical    application    of   Christianity  for    the    betterment    of" 


INAUGURATION  OF  A   NEW  PRESIDENT.        ^^79 

society.  It  is  seeking  to  oifset  the  evils  and  sorrows  of 
poverty ;  to  supplement  the  deficiencies  resulting  from  sin, 
neglect  or  ignorance  ;  to  reduce  the  melancholy  alienation  of 
class  from  class.  And  the  Church  has  found  out  that  this 
practical  application  of  Christianity  can  never  be  accom- 
plished by  the  unassisted  work  of  the  ministry.  The  pro- 
gress already  made  would  have  been  impossible  but  for  the 
splendid  earnestness  of  men  and  women  of  the  laity.  Bnt 
the  value  of  lay- work  can  be  indefinitely  augmented  by 
means  of  training ;  training  in  the  principles  of  a  popular- 
ized and  purely  evangelical  theology,  training  in  the  practi- 
cal and  facile  use  of  the  English  Bible,  training  in  the 
history  of  missions  throughout  the  world,  training  in  the 
true  and  harmonious  relation  of  various  church  polities  to 
each  other,  training  in  the  uses  and  values  of  sacred  music, 
training  in  the  principles  of  civics  and  in  the  economic  side 
of  social  reconstruction ;  training,  in  short,  in  whatever 
makes  for  the  complete  efficiency  of  the  lay-worker.  I 
believe  that  the  seminary,  by  an  expansion  of  its  scope  on 
lines  well  within  its  constitutional  rights,  may  place  itself  in 
an  attitude  toward  lay-training  which  shall  be  related  to  its 
ordinary  curriculum  for  ministerial  training  as  the  Uni- 
versity Extension  Lectures  are  related  to  the  college  course. 
Steadily,  as  I  believe  and  as  I  pray,  the  distinction  between 
the  ministry  and  the  laity,  in  so  far  as  it  is  an  artificial  dis- 
tinction, is  receding  from  view ;  and  in  its  place  is  rising  a 
new  brotherhood  between  all,  ordained  or  unordained,  who 
are  working,  in  the  one  Sacred  Name,  to  upbuild  and  to 
unify  a  fallen  and  dismembered  social  fabric.  Why  should 
the  ministry  have  a  monopoly  of  that  learning  which  may  be 
supposed  to  exist  in  the  faculty  of  such  a  school  as  this? 
Why  may  not  the  same  knowledge  be  communicated  to  any 
and  to  all  who  are  to  labor  side  by  side  in  the  great  world- 


380  77/^   UNION  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

field  of  human  life?  If  the  subjects  taught  in  the  theo- 
logical seminary  are  of  any  real  value  as  an  equipment  for 
practical  usefulness,  why  should  not  those  teachings  be  shared 
by  all  men  and  women  who  love  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in 
sincerity  and  who  are  purposing  to  spread  Christ's  influence 
in  the  earth? 

3.  The  Line  of  Social  Service.  On  the  upper  East 
side  of  New  York,  particularly  the  thirty-second  and 
thirty-third  Assembly  Districts,  a  new  and  densely  popu- 
lated city  has  sprung  into  being  within  the  last  ten  or 
fifteen  years.  Far  more  than  one  hundred  thousand  per- 
sons are  dwelling  in  that  quarter,  the  greater  part  of  them 
being  industrious  and  self-supporting  toilers.  They  represent 
many  nations  and  many  forms  of  faith.  Earnest  ministers 
and  missionaries,  Protestant,  Catholic,  and  Jewish,  are 
laboring  in  that  quarter  to  supply  the  comfort  and  guidance 
provided  by  their  social  faiths.  But  all  existing  means  of  re- 
ligious teaching  and  social  elevation  in  that  crowded  district 
are,  up  to  this  time,  far  less  than  the  conditions  require. 
Three  years  ago,  in  the  very  heart  of  that  populous  territory, 
a  social  settlement  was  planted  in  faith  and  hope.  It  sus- 
tained then,  and  it  sustains  now,  no  organic  relation  to  this 
seminary,  although  it  bears  the  name  of  "Union."  But  it 
was  a  direct  emanation  from  this  seminary  ;  an  expression  of 
the  spirit  of  social  love  which  prevails  within  this  institution. 
An  honored  and  dearly  loved  member  of  this  faculty  was  at 
the  head  of  the  movement,  and  his  colleagues  have  given 
freely  of  their  time  and  strength  to  promote  its  interests. 
An  alumnus  of  the  seminary  became  the  head  worker ;  many 
undergraduates  have  done  manful  service  there,  and  the 
friends  of  the  seminary  have  been  the  friends  of  the  settle- 
ment.     Its    history    thus    far    has    been    a    sweet  and  simple 


INAUGURATION  OF  A   NEW  PRESIDENT.         381 

chronicle  of  work  done  in  Christ's  name  and  spirit  to  make 
life  brighter,  purer,  and  more  hopeful  for  men,  women, 
youths,  and  little  children,  who,  because  they  are  poor  and 
must  toil  painfully  for  daily  bread,  cannot  otherwise  possess 
those  inspiring  and  educating  influences  which  are  provided 
in  the  settlement.  And  now  the  time  has  arrived  when  the 
preaching  of  the  Gospel  has  become  a  part  of  the  Union  Set- 
tlement work,  and  when  week  by  week  one  of  God's  servants 
oiFers  to  the  dwellers  in  those  crowded  homes  "  the  life  which 
is  life  indeed." 

I  believe  that  this  seminary  by  the  expansion  of  its  scope 
along  the  line  of  social  service,  and  by  using  the  Providen- 
tial opportunity  afforded  in  the  Union  Settlement,  may  take 
one  of  the  most  advanced  positions  that  has  yet  been  taken 
by  a  divinity  school  in  showing  that  high  Christian  scholar- 
ship and  intense  evangelistic  and  social  effort  truly  and  prop- 
erly go  together.  I  pray  for  the  day  when  in  the  heart  of 
that  neighborhood  which  I  have  described,  some  far-visioned 
Christian  man  or  woman  shall  build  for  the  Union  Settle- 
ment a  great  and  complete  establishment,  as  great  as  Mans- 
field House  in  the  east  of  London ;  making  that  house,  con- 
secrated to  the  service  of  humanity  upon  the  basis  of  the 
Gospel  of  the  Cross,  a  perpetual  expression  of  the  true  spirit 
and  intention  of  this  seminary  toward  the  problem  of  social 
reconstruction.  I  would  have  that  house  a  centre  of  physical, 
intellectual,  and  spiritual  education  for  the  people  of  that 
district ;  an  open  portal,  a  gate  beautiful  into  a  wider  and 
happier  life  than  the  life  of  Christless  ignorance.  And  I 
would  have  that  house  and  the  district  about  it  a  sublime 
opportunity  for  the  students  of  this  seminary  to  learn  all  the 
new,  loving,  generous  methods  of  helping  mankind  to  a  bet- 
ter life,  and  of  coming  near  unto,  yes,  of  immersing  one's 
self  into  that  deep  sea  of  humanity  which  heaves  in  restless- 


382  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

ness  around  the  walls  of  tlie  Church  and  knows  so  little  of 
what  Christ  intended  that  His  Church  should  mean  in  this 
fallen  and  disordered  world. 

4.  The  Line  of  Spiritual  Power.  In  many  quarters 
of  the  Church  to  day  (and  I  speak  now  of  all  branches 
of  the  Church)  the  deepest  longing  of  the  most  thought- 
ful hearts  is  for  a  return  of  Christians  to  that  spirituality 
of  mind  and  of  life  which  prevailed  among  the  believers 
of  the  Apostolic  Age.  Gratefully  do  I  quote  the  devout 
words  of  one  of  my  colleagues  Avho  has  recently  written 
concerning  this  primitive  period  of  Christian  history.  "  It 
is  not  enough  to  speak  of  the  ethical  principles  and  practice 
of  the  early  Christians  ;  their  life  was  above  all  else  re- 
ligious and  it  was  that  dominant  religiousness  which  gave  it 
its  peculiar  and  distinctive  character.  The  controlling  fact 
in  their  life  was  the  consciousness  of  being  citizens  of  a 
heavenly  Kingdom  and  heirs  of  a  heavenly  inheritance. 
They  might  go  about  their  ordinary  occupations  as  they  had 
always  done  and  might  mingle  with  their  neighbors  as  be- 
fore, but, they  were  conscious  all  the  time  that  they  were 
living  in  another  world,  and  that  the  forces  and  influences 
which  controlled  them  were  from  above.  The  consciousness 
found  concrete  expression  in  the  belief  that  the  Holy  Spirit 
was  in  the  church,  guiding  and  inspiring  the  followers  of 
Christ  and  endowing  them  with  power  far  beyond  their  own." 
Words  like  these  represent  that  for  which  the  most  thoughtful 
men  within  the  Church  are  praying  ;  the  deepening  of  the  spirit- 
ual sense  of  Christ's  person,  of  Christ's  work,  and  of  Christ's 
ideal  for  His  church  which  alone  can  prevail  to  banish 
controversy,  quicken  faith,  and  promote  personal  consecration. 

r  believe  that  this  seminary  may  and  must  expand  its 
scope  along  this  line  of  spiritual  power.     The  chapel  in  which 


INAUGURATION  OF  A   NEW  PRESIDENT.         383 

we  gather  to-night,  and  which  loving  and  filial  hands  have 
adorned  in  memory  of  one  whose  life  and  whose  teach- 
ings bore  witness  to  the  value  of  a  spiritually  minded  min- 
istry, ought  to  be  a  place  where  those  of  all  branches  of  the 
Church  who  desire  to  worship  in  the  spirit  and  to  })onder 
the  principles  and  objects  of  the  life  which  is  hid  with 
Christ  in  God  may  come  together,  free  from  the  saddening 
influences  of  controversy  and  far  from  the  dark  shadows  of 
doubt,  to  sit  together  in  heavenly  places  in  Jesus  Christ  and 
commune  in  the  unity  of  the  spirit  and  under  the  bond  of 
peace.  The  whole  effect  and  influence  of  this  seminary  upon 
those  who  study  within  its  walls  in  preparation  for  the  min- 
istry ought  to  be  to  exalt  Jesus  Christ  in  His  eternal  God- 
head, in  His  atoning  sacrifice,  in  His  risen  and  enthroned 
glory,  in  His  future  advent;  and  so  to  nourish  and  to 
strengthen  the  powers  of  the  spiritual  manhood  that  all  who 
go  forth  from  this  place  to  lead  the  Living  Church  into  the 
new  opportunities  of  a  new  century  shall  bear  upon  their 
lives  the  seal  of  God  and  shall  utter  with  their  lips  that  age- 
less mystery,  revealed  in  Christ,  of  grace,  mercy  and  peace, 
through  God  the  Father,  God  the  Son,  and  God  the  Holy 
Ghost. 


BIOGKAPHICAL   SKETCHES 

OF 

DIRECTORS  AND  PROFESSORS. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCHES.  387 


part  jfourtb. 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES    OF    DIRECTORS    AND 
PROFESSORS. 

William  Agur  Booth  (1860-1895)  was  bom  in  Stam- 
ford, Connecticut,  1805,  and  died  in  Englewood,  New  Jersey, 
on  the  28th  day  of  December,  1895,  in  the  ninety-first  year 
of  his  age.  Mr.  Bootli  was  one  of  the  foremost  citizens  of 
New  York,  eminent  alike  in  the  world  of  business,  in  the 
whole  sphere  of  religious  activity  and  service,  in  patriotic 
devotion,  and  above  all,  in  weight  of  personal  character  and 
influence.  His  name  will  always  be  associated  with  that 
remarkable  succession  of  Christian  laymen  of  New  York, 
to  whose  wisdom,  energy,  foresight,  liberality  and  pious  zeal, 
home  and  foreign  missions  in  all  their  varied  forms  and 
societies  owe  so  great  and  lasting  a  debt.  To  do  full  justice 
to  this  part  of  his  life-work  would  require  a  volume.  His 
own  "  Reminiscences,"  prepared  for  the  gratification  of  his 
wide  family  circle,  and  printed  after  his  death,  furnish  in- 
deed such  a  record.  It  is  an  old  man's  story,  told  to  his 
children  and  grandchildren,  and  told  with  a  modesty  and 
simplicity  of  style  most  attractive.  The  following  minute 
was  adopted  by  the  Board  of  Directors  of  Union  Theologi- 
cal Seminary  : 

On  the  28th  day  of  December,  1895,  at  his  home  in 
Englewood,  New  Jersey,  surrounded  by  his  immediate  kin- 
dred, our  revered  father,  associate  and  friend,  Mr.  William 
A.  Booth,  in  the  ninety-first  year  of  his  age, 

Meekly  gave  his  being  up  and  went 

To  share  that  holy  rest  which  waits  a  life  well  spent. 


388  T^HE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

The  Board  of  Directors  of  Union  Seminary,  bowing  sub- 
missively to  the  divine  visitation,  hereby  do  record  their 
sense  of  bereavement  and  their  liigh  appreciation  of  the  many 
and  rare  qualities  of  mind  and  heart  which  easily  placed 
Mr.  Booth  among  the  foremost  in  Christian  citizenship ;  a 
human  standard  of  human  excellence. 

Mr.  Booth  was  elected  a  director  of  this  institution  on 
November  14,  1860,  filling  the  place  of  Mr.  Caleb  O.  Hal- 
sted,  then  recently  deceased.  Of  those  who  then  composed 
the  directorate,  only  three  survive,  viz.,  Charles  Butler,  LL.D., 
Rev.  George  L.  Prentiss,  D.D.,  and  Mr.  Salem  H.  Wales. 

With  characteristic  zeal  and  fidelity,  Mr.  Booth  addressed 
himself  to  the  active  duties  of  his  office.  He  was  at  once 
made  a  member  of  the  Finance  Committee,  where  his  large 
experience,  sound  judgment  and  wise  counsels  enabled  him 
to  render  eminent  service  in  the  management  not  only  of 
the  financial,  but  of  all  other  departments  through  the  Civil 
War  period  and  continuously  thereafter. 

By  reason  of  his  advanced  age  and  distant  residence  Mr. 
Booth's  personal  intercourse  with  the  board  in  later  years 
has  been  subject  to  these  limitations,  but  to  those  who 
through  long  years  of  close  intimacy  have  walked  with  him 
in  the  marts  of  commerce,  amid  the  rugged  scenes  of  public 
alarm  and  of  national  peril,  in  the  more  congenial  fields  of 
benevolence  and  philanthropic  enterprise,  or  in  the  tranquil 
paths  of  Christian  beneficence,  his  exemplary  life  and  sym- 
metrical character  combining  in  such  degree  and  beautiful 
proportion  the  gentleness  and  grace  of  a  Christian  spirit 
with  the  sterling  qualities  of  a  vigorous  and  forceful  man- 
hood, will  be  an  abiding  inspiration  ;  and  his  unifiirm  cour- 
tesy, his  habitual  self-command,  his  genial  fellowship  and 
his  generous  friendship  will  all  be  cherished  in  grateful  and 
affectionate  remembrance. 

John  Hall  D.D.,  LL.D.,  (1870-1892)  belonged  to  an 
old  Scotch-Irish  family.  He  was  born  in  the  county  of 
Armagh,  Ireland,  July  31,  1829.  He  was  a  graduate  of 
the  Royal  College  and  of  the  General   Assembly's  Theologi- 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES.  389 

cal  College  in  Belfast,  Licensed  to  preach  in  1849,  he 
labored  for  the  next  three  years  as  the  "  students'  mission- 
ary "  in  the  west  of  Ireland.  In  1852  he  became  pastor 
of  the  First  Presbyterian  church  at  Armagh,  and  in  1858 
collegiate  pastor  of  St.  Mary's  Abbey  in  Dublin.  In  1867 
he  accepted  a  call  to  the  Fifth  Avenue  Presbyterian  church 
in  the  city  of  New  York.  Here  he  labored  with  extraor- 
dinary zeal,  fidelity  and  success  for  the  next  thirty  years. 
His  congregation  was  one  of  the  largest,  most  influential  and 
most  noted  for  its  varied  and  munificent  charities  in  all  the 
land.  In  addition  to  his  work  as  a  preacher  and  pastor 
Dr.  Hall  rendered  valuable  service  to  the  cause  of  missions, 
both  domestic  and  foreign,  and  to  other  great  Christian 
interests.  For  several  years  he  was  chancellor  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  the  city  of  New  York.  As  an  author  also  he 
was  highly  useful.  He  died  suddenly  while  on  a  visit  to 
his  sister  at  Bangor,  County  Down,  Ireland,  on  September 
17,  1898.  Others  may  have  surpassed  him  in  pulpit 
oratory,  in  theological  learning,  or  as  leaders  of  religious 
thought  and  action ;  but  in  solidity  of  personal  character,  in 
the  simplicity,  depth  and  earnestness  of  his  piety,  in  preach- 
ing the  old  Gospel  of  salvation  through  the  grace  of  God  in 
Jesus  Christ,  in  the  abundance  and  sweetness  of  his  pastoral 
care,  Dr.  Hall  was  among  the  foremost  Presbyterian  minis- 
ters of  his  generation,  whether  at  home  or  abroad.  "  If  I 
could  only  preach  the  Gospel  like  that ! "  wrote  Dr.  Henry 
B.  Smith  in  1871,  referring  to  a  sermon  he  had  just  heard 
from  Dr.  Hall. 

John  Taylor  Johnston  (1870-1893)  was  born  in  New 
York,  April  8,  1820.  He  graduated  at  the  University  of 
the  City  of  New  York,  with  the  class  of  1839,  and  was  ad- 
mitted to  the  bar  in  1843.     The  chief  business    of  his    life, 


390  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

however,  was  the  management  and  control  of  raih'oads,  rather 
than  the  practice  of  law.  Before  his  thirtieth  year  he  be- 
came president  of  the  Central  Railroad  of  New  Jersey,  and 
remained  for  many  years  at  its  head,  directing  its  affiiirs 
with  rare  skill  and  ability.  He  took  an  active  interest  in 
education,  especially  as  represented  by  his  Alma  Mater,  and 
was  president  also  of  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art.  He 
died  after  a  wearisome  illness. 

Mr.  Johnston  furnished  a  fine  example  of  an  American 
man  of  business,  who  at  the  same  time  was  a  man  of 
scholarly  tastes  and  of  high  culture  both  in  literature  and 
art.  No  one  could  meet  him  in  the  Board  of  Directors,  in 
the  committee  room,  or  in  social  intercourse,  without  feeling 
himself  in  the  presence  of  a  refined  and  high-minded  Chris- 
tian gentleman. 

Joseph  Tuttle  Duryea,  D.D.,  (1868-1874)  was  born 
at  Jamaica,  Long  Island,  December  9,  1832.  He  graduated 
at  the  College  of  New  Jersey  in  the  class  of  1856,  and  was 
also  a  graduate  of  Princeton  Theological  Seminary  in  the 
class  of  1859.  In  the  same  year  he  was  ordained  pastor  of 
the  Second  Presbyterian  church,  Troy,  New  York.  Three 
years  later  he  became  a  pastor  of  the  Collegiate  Reformed 
church.  New  York  City.  In  1867  he  accepted  a  call  to  the 
Closson  Avenue  Presbyterian  church,  Brooklyn,  New  York. 
In  1879  he  became  pastor  of  the  Central  Congregational 
church,  Boston,  Massachusetts.  After  a  ten  years'  ministry 
of  varied  activity  and  power  in  Boston,  he  was  called  in 
1889  to  the  First  Congregational  church  in  Omaha,  Nebraska. 
His  last  pastorate  was  of  the  First  Reformed  church  in  Brook- 
lyn, New  York.  He  resigned  on  account  of  physical  Aveak- 
ness  in  February,  1898,  and  died  suddenly  in  Boston,  a 
few  months  later. 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES.  391 

My  acquaintance  with  Dr.  Duryea  began  soon  after  his 
settlement  in  New  York.  He  was  then  thirty  years  old,  very 
winning  in  his  manners,  and  full  of  intellectual  and  spiritual 
energy.  I  thought  him  one  of  the  most  interesting  and  gifted 
young  ministers  I  had  ever  known.  How  high  he  stood  in  the 
public  estimation  was  shown  a  few  years  later  by  his  ap- 
pointment to  deliver  the  opening  address  at  the  memorial 
jubilee  of  Dr.  Charles  Hodge  in  1872.  During  the  Civil 
War  he  rendered  invaluable  service  in  the  work  of  the 
Christian  Commission,  while  as  an  orator  at  patriotic 
gatherings,  both  in  New  York  and  at  Washington,  he 
touched  the  popular  heart  with  the  skill  of  a  master.  I 
never  met  him  again  after  his  removal  to  New  England, 
but  often  heard  of  his  indefatigable  labors  and  usefulness,  both 
as  preacher  in  Boston  and  as  a  favorite  lecturer  at  Andover, 
at  Wellesley,  and  elsewhere.  Here  is  an  extract  from  a 
notice  of  his  departure  in  The  Evangelist  of  May  26,  1898, 
written  by  an  old  friend : 

The  highest  encomium  we  can  pay  him  as  a  preacher  is 
to  repeat  the  words  of  Phillips  Brooks,  "  I  cannot  atford  to 
miss  one  of  Dr.  Duryea's  sermons."  Brooks  was  his  near 
neighbor  in  Boston  and  always  attended  Duryea's  afternoon 
service.  He  had  grown  up  to  a  stature  that  made  him  easily 
a  superior  intelligence  and  authority.  He  was  too  independ- 
ent for  a  prescribed  professorship ;  he  was  sometimes  too 
philosophical  for  the  comfort  of  his  congregation.  But  he 
was  a  man  so  richly  endowed  and  so  rarely  furnished  that  it 
was  a  privilege  to  listen  to  him,  which  the  best  men  and  the 
best  furnished  minds  found  especially  grateful  and  desirable. 
He  grew  in  wisdom  and  knoweldge  to  the  end. 

Henry  Day  (1870-1893)  was  one  of  the  most  ardent 
and  influential  friends  of  reunion  among  the  laymen  of  the  Old 
School  Church.  In  the  General  Assembly  of  that  branch, 
held  at  Albany  in  1868,  he  took  a  leading  part  in  advocating 


392  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

the  cause.  He  was  sent  as  a  special  messenger  to  bear  the 
greeting  of  the  Albany  Assembly  to  that  of  the  New  School 
Church,  then  in  session  at  Harrisburg.  I  was  a  member  of 
that  New  School  Assembly  and  remember  Avell  the  fine  im- 
pression he  made  upon  the  entire  body.  Hardly  had  the 
reunion  been  accomplished  when  he  was  unanimously  elected 
a  director  of  the  Union  Theological  Seminary.  Of  his  in- 
valuable services  to  the  institution  no  one  is  so  well  entitled 
to  speak  as  his  friend,  Dr.  Hastings,  to  whom  I  am  indebted 
for  the  following  truthful  sketch  : 

My  Dear  Dr.  Prentiss: — You  asked  me  to  write  you 
concerning  the  life  and  services  of  our  friend,  the  late  Henry 
Day,  Esq.  I  accept  this  task  as  a  labor  of  love,  since  I 
have  special  reasons  for  holding  Mr.  Day  in  grateful  and 
affectionate  remembrance,  though  I  cannot  hope  to  say  how 
much  he  was  to  me  as  a  counsellor  and  a  cordial  supporter 
through  the  most  trying  years  of  the  seminary's  history. 

Henry  Day  was  born  in  South  Hadley,  Massachusetts, 
December  25,  1820.  He  was  graduated  at  Yale  College  in 
1845,  and  was  admitted  to  the  New  York  bar  in  the  fall 
of  1845.  He  married,  January  31,  1849,  the  daughter  of 
the  late  Daniel  Lord,  and  was  associated  with  the  distin- 
guished firm  of  Lord,  Day  and  Lord  throughout  his  profes- 
sional career.  It  was  said  of  him  at  his  death  that  "  he  had 
drawn  more  wills,  involving  millions  perhaps,  than  any  other 
lawyer  in  New  York  City,"  and  he  was  one  of  those  practi- 
tioners who  could  never  be  induced  by  a  retainer,  or  by  any 
other  influence,  to  bring  his  great  legal  abilities  to  bear  in  favor 
of  corporations  or  individuals  who  sought  to  avoid  legal 
responsibility  by  legal  subtlety.  He  was  a  director  and  the 
counsel  of  the  Equitable  Life  Insurance  Company,  of  which 
he  was  one  of  the  founders,  and  of  the  Mercantile  Trust 
Company,  and  of  the  Lawyers'  Title  Insurance  Company. 

Mr.  Day  united  with  the  church  in  South  Hadley  in  1840 
before  entering  college,  and  in  New  York  was  made  an  elder 
in  the  Fifth  Avenue  Presbyterian  church  under  the  pastorate 
of  the    late    Dr.  James  W.  Alexander,  which   office  he  lu'ld 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES.  393 

until  his  death.  In  1865  he  was  made  a  trustee  of  Prince- 
ton Theological  Seminary.  He  took  an  active  interest  in 
promoting  the  reunion  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  and  was 
a  member  of  the  committee  of  the  Assembly  of  1867  which 
prepared  the  overtures  of  peace  of  the  New  School  Church, 
and  he  also  had  a  hand  in  drafting  the  articles  which  fortiicd 
the  basis  of  reunion.  He  published  two  books  of  travel, 
"  A  Lawyer  Abroad,"  and  "  From  the  Pyrenees  to  the  Pil- 
lars of  Hercules." 

In  1870  Mr.  Day  was  elected  a  director  of  Union  The- 
ological Seminary,  in  which  capacity  he  served  for  twenty- 
three  years  until  his  death.  It  would  be  difficult  to 
overestimate  the  zeal,  devotion  and  fidelity  with  which  he 
discharged  his  duties  as  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Directors 
and  of  the  Executive  Committee.  Far  seeing  and  fearless, 
he  was  always  ready  to  bear  responsibility,  and  to  meet 
difficulty  with  an  enthusiastic  faith  in  the  future  of  our 
seminary.  In  the  controversy  wntli  the  General  Assembly 
he  never  faltered  or  weakened  for  a  moment,  but  bravely 
and  yet  in  the  best  spirit  contended  for  tlie  liberty  of  our 
institution.  There  were  two  other  lawyers  in  the  board,  but 
Mr.  Day  was  the  first  to  contend  that  the  agreement  of  1870 
was  an  illegal  surrender  of  the  rights  and  responsibilities  of 
the  seminary  to  the  General  Assembly.  He  obtained  from 
Judge  Noah  Davis  an  elaborate  opinion  confirmatory  of  this 
view.  It  was  then  that  the  board  secured  the  opinion  of 
James  C.  Carter,  Esq.,  bearing  upon  this  point,  and  I  well 
remember  the  satisfaction  of  Mr.  Day  in  the  conclusive  im- 
pression which  Mr.  Carter's  opinion  made  upon  the  board. 
He  rejoiced  to  see  the  seminary  recover  its  original  inde- 
pendence, and  to  the  last,  even  when  weakened  by  illness, 
he  attended  the  meetings  of  the  board  and  aided  its  counsels. 
He  proved  himself  in  many  ways  an  ardent  friend  of  free 
and  high  scholarship,  and  a  fearless  advocate  of  Christian 
liberty.  He  was  genial  and  courteous  and  generous,  and  in 
'^y  judgment  rendered  distinguished  service  to  the  cause  of 
higher  theological  education,  aiding  us  in  bearing  heavy 
burdens  and  in  meeting  special  exigencies. 


394  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

He  died  in  New  York  City  on  the  9tli  of  Jannary,  1893, 
in  the  seventy-third  year  of  his  age  and  in  the  twenty-third 
year  of  his  service  as  a  director.  Surely  his  name  should  be 
held  in  grateful  and  loving  remembrance  by  all  the  friends 
of  Union  Seminary  and  of  what  it  represents. 
Always  affectionately  yours, 

Thomas  S.  Hastings. 

JoNATHAisr  French  Stearns,  D.  D.  (1850-1888)  was 
one  of  the  worthiest  representatives  of  two  very  old  and  em- 
inent ministerial  families  of  New  England.  His  father,  the 
Rev.  Samuel  Stearns,  pastor  for  thirty-seven  years  of  the 
Congregational  church  in  Bedford,  Massachusetts,  took  a  lead- 
ing part  in  the  controversy,  w^hich  early  in  the  century  led  to  a 
sharp  division  between  Orthodoxy  and  Unitarianism  ;  while 
his  grandfather  on  his  mother's  side,  the  Rev.  Jonathan 
French,  was  closely  identified  with  the  establishment  of  the 
Andover  Theological  Seminary.  Both  were  men  noted  in 
their  day  for  weight  of  character,  personal  excellence,  and 
wide  influence  in  the  revival  of  religious  faith  and  learning 
among  the  Congregational  churches  of  Massachusetts.  Three 
sons  of  the  Rev.  Samuel  Stearns,  all  graduates  of  Harvard 
College,  and  inheriting  the  best  qualities  of  their  Puritan  an- 
cestry, left  behind  them  honored  names  as  pastors  and 
preachers  of  the  Gospel.  Samuel,  the  eldest,  after  a  short 
ministry  in  the  Old  South  church,  Boston,  passed  away  in 
early  manhood,  greatly  beloved  and  lamented  by  the  w'hole 
community.  William,  after  a  most  useful  pastorate,  became 
president  of  Amherst  College,  and  did  a  noble  work  in 
strengthening  and  widening  its  influence.  Two  other  sous, 
Josiah  and  Eben,  spent  their  lives  in  teaching ;  the  former 
in  Boston,  the  latter  in  Portland,  Exeter,  Albany  and  Nash- 
ville. They  were  among  the  most  successful  and  noted 
educators  of  their  day. 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES.  395 

Mr.  Stearns  was  born  at  Bedford,  September  4,  1808, 
and  educated,  as  I  have  said,  at  Harvard  College.  He  be- 
longed to  the  class  of  1830.  Sliortly  before  the  death  of  the 
late  George  Ripley,  so  long  identified  with  the  literary  de- 
partment of  the  New  York  Tribune,  I  accompanied  Dr. 
Stearns  on  a  visit  to  that  accomplished  scholar,  and  listened 
with  delight  to  their  charming  talk  and  bright  anecdotes 
about  college  days.  Charles  Sumner  was  in  the  same  class 
with  Jonathan  F.  Stearns,  was  his  room-mate  during  a  part 
of  the  course,  and  the  friendship  then  formed  between  them 
continued  unbroken  to  the  last.  In  1835  Mr.  Stearns  was 
ordained  and  installed  pastor  of  the  first  Presbyterian  church, 
Newburyport,  Massachusetts;  the  church  in  which  George 
Whitefield  often  preached,  and  beneath  whose  pulpit  his  dust 
is  still  sleeping.  Here  he  continued  to  labor  for  fourteen 
years,  endearing  himself  more  and  more  to  the  people  and  to 
the  whole  city.  In  1849,  he  accepted  a  call  to  the  First 
Presbyterian  church  in  Newark,  N.  J.;  the  venerable  church 
whose  annals  form  no  small  part  of  the  earlier  history  of  the 
town  and  of  the  region  round  about.  Henry  B.  Smith,  then 
professor  at  Amherst,  preached  the  installation  sermon.  Dr. 
Stearns'  Newark  pastorate,  was  crowded  with  work  and  use- 
fulness. Newark  in  1849  was  remarkable,  as  indeed  it 
always  had  been,  for  the  high  character  of  its  ministers  and 
its  Christian  laymen,  and  as  a  centre  of  the  religious  life 
and  culture  of  New  Jersey.  Dr.  Stearns'  labors  and  in- 
fluence both  at  Newark  and  in  New  York,  for  more  than  a 
third  of  the  century,  were  very  great ;  greater  fiir  than  was 
known  to  the  general  public.  He  was  a  modest  man,  and  a 
good  deal  of  his  best  work  was  that  of  a  wise  counsellor 
and  helper;  he  got  oftentimes  no  credit  for  it  because  he 
sought  and  desired  none.  As  a  director  nearly  two  score 
years  of  Union  Theological   Seminary,  for    example,  his    ad- 


396  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

vice  was  at  critical  times  simply  invaluable ;  but  it  was 
usually  given  by  request  and  followed  without  any  mention 
of  his  name.  I  myself  owed  him  a  heavy  debt  for  such 
advice ;  and  Henry  B.  Smith,  I  feel  sure,  would  have  said 
the  same  thing.  My  own  opinion  is,  and  has  always  been, 
tliat  but  for  him  'Henry  B.  Smith  \vould  never  have 
been  connected  with  the  institution,  nor  Avould  the 
Washburn  chair  of  Church  History  have  been  founded 
or  Roswell  D.  Hitchcock  called  to  fill  it.  How  much  of 
the  most  effective  service  to  the  cause  of  God  and  humanity 
is  rendered  in  just  such  quiet,  unknown  ways  !  Dr.  Stearns' 
best  influence  in  the  Church  at  large,  was  of  this  unob- 
trusive sort.  And  if  to  such  influence  be  added  that 
of  his  open,  strong  advocacy  of  important  principles  and 
measures  bearing  upon  the  order,  faith,  progress,  peace  and 
unity  of  the  Churches  of  Christ  throughout  our  land — more 
especially  of  the  Presbyterian  and  Congregational  Churches — 
we  shall  have  as  the  total  result  a  kind  and  degree  of  use- 
fulness worthy  of  the  highest  praise.  I  have  never  known 
a  man  who  seemed  to  me  to  look  at  great  questions  of  duty  with 
an  eye  more  single,  or  a  judgment  less  biassed  by  sectarian  or 
personal  narrowness  and  prejudice.  The  Presbyterian  Church 
showed  her  estimate  of  his  character  by  placing  him  year 
after  year  upon  several  of  her  most  important  committees  or 
boards,  and  by  electing  him  Moderator  of  her  General  As- 
sembly at  Harrisburg,  in  1868.  He  was  also  for  many  years 
a  trustee  of  Princeton  College,  from  which  he  had  received 
his  doctorate  of  divinity.  Owing  to  failing  health  and  in- 
firmities of  age,  he  resigned  his  charge  in  April,  1882,  and 
was  made  Pastor  Emeritus,  the  congregation  providing  very 
generously  for  his  worldly  comfort.  His  last  days,  though 
sadly  darkened  by  loss  of  memory  and  mental  weakness, 
were    not    without    hours    brightened    by  the    old    smile,  by 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCHES.  397 

flashes  of  happy  and  tender  recollection,  by  a  child's  delight 
in  the  books  and  toys  of  his  boyhood,  by  the  sweetest  ex- 
pressions of  old  household  aifection,  and  by  the  wondrous 
reverence  with  which  he  still  bowed  his  knee  to  the  name 
of  Jesus.  He  passed  into  rest  at  the  home  of  his  son-in- 
law,  President  Scott  of  Rutgers  College,  New  Brunswick, 
November  11,  1889.  He  left  three  children,  two  of  whom 
still  survive — Seargent  Prentiss  Stearns,  Esq.,  of  Montreal, 
for  several  years  United  States  Consul-General  in  Canada, 
and  Mrs.  Austin  Scott,  of  New  Brunswick.  His  youngest 
son,  Lewis  French,  was  professor  of  Theology  at  Bangor, 
Maine,  and  died  suddenly  in  1892,  greatly  lamented  by 
Christian  scholars  throughout  the  country. 

Dr.  Stearns  wrote  a  good  deal  for  the  religious  press, 
especially  for  the  New  York  Evcmgelist,  on  questions  of  the 
day,  theological  and  ecclesiastical ;  and  besides  published  a 
a  very  able  sermon  on  "Justification,"  preached  before  the 
Synod  of  New  York  and  New  Jersey,  a  centennial  discourse 
in  memory  of  Whitefield,  and  various  occasional  addresses. 
He  also  published  a  history  of  the  First  Church  of  Newark, 
which  is  a  model  of  its  kind.  Not  long  after  his  death  his 
successor,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Frazer,  delivered  in  the  First  Pres- 
byterian church  at  Newark,  a  very  affectionate  and  discrim- 
inating discourse,  in  which  the  leading  traits  of  Dr.  Stearns' 
life  and  character  were  delineated  in  the  happiest  manner. 

About  the  same  time  a  special  memorial  service  was  held 
in  the  First  Presbyterian  church  at  Newburyport,  which 
was  attended  by  the  mayor  and  other  leading  citizens,  and 
by  a  crowded  assembly  composed  largely  of  the  children  and 
children's  children  of  Dr.  Stearns'  New  England  flock. 
The  tribute  both  to  the  old  pastor  and  pastor's  wife  could 
hardly  have  been  more  beautiful  or  more  touching  had  only 
five  instead  of  forty  years  passed  away  since  their  departure 


398  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

to   Newark.      A  single  extract  from  an  address  of  the   Rev. 
Dr.  Fiske  on  the  occasion  will  show  its  spirit : 

I  esteem  it  a  privilege  to  join  you  this  morning  in  pay- 
ing some  fitting  tribute  to  a  former  pastor  of  this  church, 
whom  to  know  was  to  love.  Dr.  Stearns  had  been  your 
pastor  nearly  twelve  years  when  I  came  to  reside  in  the 
city  and  first  made  his  acquaintance.  Yet  he  seemed  and 
was  quite  a  young  man  beside  his  venerable  ministerial 
neighbors,  Dr.  Daniel  Dana,  Dr.  Leonard  Withington,  and 
Dr.  Luther  F.  Dimmick.  At  my  ordination  he  was 
selected  to  give  me,  in  the  name  of  the  Congregational 
churches  in  the  vicinity,  and  in  the  name  of  the  Congrega- 
tional churches  at  large,  the  right  hand  of  fellowship.  It 
may  seem  strange  that  this  duty  should  have  been  assigned 
to  the  pastor  of  a  Presbyterian  church.  But  Dr.  Stearns 
was  a  Congregationalist  before  he  was  a  Presbyterian,  and 
enough  of  a  Congregationalist  afterward  to  be  in  heartiest 
sympathy  with  Congregational  churches  and  Congregational 
ministers.  Indeed  he  was  a  man  of  such  broad  views, 
large  heart  and  catholic  spirit  that  he  could  fitly  represent 
both  of  these  denominations,  which  have  always  been  one  in 
all  the  great  essentials  of  Christianity.  So  hearty  was  the 
right  hand  of  fellowship  which  he  gave  me — more  than 
forty-two  years  ago — that  I  seem  to  feel  the  warm  pres- 
sure of  his  clasping  palm  still ;  and  so  chaste  and  classic  was 
his  diction,  and  yet  so  throbbing  with  life  and  emotion,  that 
my  heart  was  touched  and  I  felt  assured  that  I  should  find  in 
him  a  true  friend  and  brother.      Nor  was  I   disappointed. 

Dr.  Stearns  was  a  man  of  scholarly  and  refined  tastes, 
of  urbane  manners,  of  sweet  and  gentle  disposition,  of  warm 
sympathies,  of  firm  convictions,  of  earnest  purposes,  of  tem- 
pered enthusiasm  and  of  a  devout  and  reverent  spirit,  an 
able  and  instructive  preacher,  a  fiiithful  pastor,  a  worthy  citi- 
zen, a  kind  neighbor,  always  and  everywhere  a  cultivated 
Christian  gentlemen.  His  removal  to  Newark  was  a  great 
public  loss ;  a  great  loss  to  this  church,  to  all  these  churches, 
to  our  whole  city  where  he  was  universally  esteemed  both 
as  a  man  and  a  minister. 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES.  399 

Let  us  to-day  devoutly  thank  God  for  the  life  of  such  a 
noble  man  as  Jonathan  F.  Stearns.  His  influence  still  lives 
among  you.  The  record  of  his  ministry  here  forms  a  bright 
chapter  in  your  history.  His  very  name  is  to  you  a  per- 
petual benediction. 

It  may  not  be  unfitting  to  add  a  word  respecting  the  wife, 
so  tenderly  referred  to  in  the  memorial  services  at  Newark  and 
Newburyport,  and  also  the  son,  who  quickly  followed  his 
father  to  the  better  country.  How  much  of  the  finest  and 
most  eifective  work  of  the  American  pastorate  is  wrought 
unconsciously  by  the  woman  behind  the  throne,  and  then  reap- 
pears in  a  son  of  her  right  hand  !  It  was  so  in  the  present  case. 
Mrs.  Stearns  was  a  sister  of  the  great  lawyer,  orator  and  patriot, 
S.  S,  Prentiss,  whose  name  is  still  a  household  word  throughout 
the  South.  The  relation  between  them  was  wonderfully 
beautiful  and  had  all  the  charms  of  romance. 

Her  youngest  son,  Lewis  French,  on  the  retirement  of  Dr. 
Shedd  from  the  chair  of  Systematic  Theology  in  Union  Semi- 
nary, was  unanimously  chosen  to  succeed  him.  He  had  just 
given  an  original  and  striking  course  of  Ely  lectures  on  The 
Evidence  of  Christian  Experience,  and  was  already  regarded 
as  one  of  the  very  foremost  of  the  younger  theologians  of  the 
country.  The  veto  power  had  something  to  do  with  his  de- 
clining the  call  to  Union.  A  few  months  before  his  death 
he  had  won  the  admiration  of  Christian  scholars,  both 
at  home  and  in  England,  by  his  masterly  address  before  the 
Congregational  Council  held  in  London  in  1891. 

Here  follows  an  extract  from  the  minutes  of  the  Board 
of  Directors  of  Union  Theological  Seminary,  on  the  death  of 
Dr.  Stearns.  The  minute  was  prepared  by  Dr.  Frazer,  his 
successor  at  Newark : 

In  1850,  Dr.  Stearns,  then  in  the  full  maturity  of  his 
powers,  was  elected  a   member  of  this    board,  devoted   him- 


400         ^-^^   UNION  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

self  enthusiastically  to  the  advancement  of  the  best  interests 
of  the  seminary,  rendered  faithful  and  efficient  service  for 
nearly  two  score  years  and  ended  his  official  relation  only 
when  disease  made  him  incompetent  to  serve. 

He  was  one  of  the  prompt,  regular  and  diligent  attendants 
upon  the  meetings  of  the  board.  He  Avas  a  wise  counsellor, 
being  singularly  free  alike  from  that  abnormal  conservatism 
which  refuses  to  recognize  the  exigences  of  the  present,  and 
from  the  excessive  radicalism  which  insists  upon  repudiating 
the  past  simply  because  it  is  past. 

By  reason  of  his  long  and  intimate  acquaintance  with  the 
men,  he  was  able  to  render  and  did  render  distinguished  aid 
in  securing  the  invaluable  services  of  Henry  B.  Smith  and 
Roswell  D.  Hitchcock  to  this  institution.  He  was  a  man  of 
strong  mind,  large  culture,  broad  views,  warm  sympathies 
and  courtly  manners ;  in  a  word,  a  Christian  gentleman. 

With  gratitude  to  God  that  he  gave  and  so  long  spared 
Dr.  Stearns  to  us,  we  record  this  minute  as  an  expression 
of  the  respect  which  we  have  long  cherished  for  the  man, 
as  an  exponent  of  our  appreciation  of  the  zeal  and  the 
fidelity  with  which  for  thirty-eight  years  he  discharged  the 
duty  of  director,  and  also  as  an  embodiment  of  our  sym- 
pathy for  those  who  mourn  a  father  beloved  and  whom  we 
tenderly  commend  to  the  all-sufficient  grace  of  the  great  and 
gracious  Father  above. 

John  H.  Worcester,  Jr.,  D.D.,  (1891-1893).  Dr. 
Worcester  was  a  member  of  the  Detroit  Assembly  and  took 
a  prominent  part  in  the  discussion,  which  followed  the  'e- 
port  of  the  Standing  Committee  on  Theological  Seminaries 
recommending  a  disapproval  of  the  transfer  of  Professor 
Briggs  to  the  new  chair  of  Biblical  Theology.  Not  long  after 
the  adjournment  of  the  General  Assembly,  he  was  unani- 
mously elected  to  the  chair  of  Systematic  Theology  in  Union 
Seminary.  Having  known  and  highly  esteemed  him  while  a 
student  in  the  institution,  I  watched  his  career  as  a  pastor, 
both  in  the  East  and  in  the  West,  with  lively  interest;  and 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES.  401 

it  would  afford  me  heartfelt  pleasure  to  make  this  sketch 
my  own  tribute  to  his  memory.  But  a  tribute  much  better 
and  more  worthy  than  I  could  write  was  paid  to  him  by  his 
friend  the  Rev.  Simon  J.  McPherson,  D.D.,  of  Cliicago,  in 
a  discourse  delivered  by  invitation  of  the  Board  of  Directors 
of  the  Union  Theological  Seminary  in  Adams  Chapel,  April 
13,  1893.  Here  follow  extracts  from  this  very  interesting 
and  beautiful  discourse : 

We  are  a  company  of  bereaved  brethren.  We  at  once 
lament  and  celebrate,  a  pastor,  a  colleague,  a  teacher,  who 
was  a  faithful  lover  and  friend  to  us  all.  For  myself  I  can 
truly  say  that  I  never  had,  and  I  never  expect  to  have,  a 
more  valued  fellow  in  the  ministry  of  the  Gospel  than  he. 
From  the  day  on  which  I  was  ordained,  through  twelve 
happy  years  to  the  day  when  he  became  a  professor  in  this 
honored  institution,  it  was  my  favored  lot  in  Providence  to 
serve  parishes  which  immediately  adjoined  his  own.  I  became 
intimately  associated  and  acquainted  with  him.  The  better  I 
came  to  know  him,  the  more  highly  I  estimated  him  as  a 
rare  type  of  Christian  manhood,  and  the  more  warmly  I  loved 
him   as    a   great-hearted  companion. 

He  was  of  English  and  Puritan  lineage,  but  in  the  eighth 
of  the  generations  who  have  been  at  home  in  the  New 
World.  Four  of  his  seven  American  forefathers  were  min- 
isters. His  name,  which,  under  two  or  three  different  forms 
of  orthography,  is  widely  scattered  amongst  Anglo-Saxons, 
is  said  to  have  etymological ly,  a  martial  meaning;  but  the 
family  coat  of  arms,  we  are  told,  "  signifies  the  first  bearer 
to  have  been  a  priest,  or  some  religious  person  ;  or  else  one 
that  had  done  much  for  the  church."  The  family  itself  has 
certainly  favored  both  the  church  and  the  school. 

The  original  settler  in  New  England,  Rev.  William  Wor- 
cester, is  mentioned  in  the  Magnalia  of  Cotton  Mather.  *'  A 
fugitive  from  persecution  and  tyranny ;"  he  came,  apparently, 
from  Salisbury,  England,  in  1637  or  1638.  He  Avas  at  once 
appointed  pastor  at  Colchester,  which,  in  1840,  became  Salis- 
bury,   the    oldest    town    north    of  the    Merrimac    river.     Its 


402  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

clnirch  Avas  the  eighteenth  in  the  Massachusetts  Colony,  of 
which  he  was  made  a  freeman  in  1639.  A  man  of  Hberal 
education,  he  is  described  as  "learned,  wise,  meek  and 
patient," — attributes  distinctive  of  his  descendants. 

The  next  three  in  the  line  lived  in  Massachusetts ;  godly, 
industrious  men,  of  stalwart  character,  devoted  to  the  public 
weal,  and  loving,  as  one  of  them  said,  "to  see  a  man,  manly." 
Francis,  of  the  fourth  generation,  after  being  some  ten  years 
a  pastor,  became  an  evangelist  and  did  thorough  work  in 
revival  meetings,  part  of  the  time  with  Whitefield.  Noah, 
his  son,  a  farmer  and  shoemaker,  who  settled  at  Hollis,  New 
Hampshire,  entered  the  army  of  the  revolution  with  two  of 
his  sons,  but  lived  to  gather  around  his  table  eighteen  chil- 
dren, of  Avliom  five  were  ministers.  When  he  died  he  left 
seventy-eight  grandchildren. 

Throughout  these  five  generations,  we  are  credibly  as- 
sured, "one  and  the  same  character,  essentially,  appeared 
from  first  to  last  .  .  .  There  may  be  ascribed  to  each  an 
enlightened  belief  in  God  and  His  Word  ;  a  confiding  recog- 
nition of  His  Providence  in  all  things ;  a  fervent  spirit  and 
a  constant  habit  of  devotion ;  an  undeviating  reverence  for 
the  Sabbath  and  every  institution  of  the  Gospel ;  an  irre- 
proachable veracity  and  honesty  :  an  exact  manliness  and  an 
undaunted  moral  courage ;  with  an  inflexible  adherence  to 
convictions  of  duty,  and  a  benevolent  forwardness  to  multiply 
and  extend,  in  every  appropriate  and  practical  manner,  '  the 
glory  and  virtue '  of  the  Church  of  God."  What  an  index 
to  the  personality  of  Professor  Worcester,  and,  indeed,  to  the 
Pilgrim  race  of  New  England  ! 

In  the  sixth  generation,  two  members  of  the  family  are 
of  special  interest  to  us.  One  of  them.  Dr.  Samuel  Wor- 
cester, a  graduate  of  Dartmouth  and  a  femous  preacher  of 
the  day  at  Salem,  was  among  the  most  active  of  the  organ- 
izers, and  for  about  twenty  years  the  first  corresponding  sec- 
retary, of  the  American  Board  of  Commissioners  for  Foreign 
Missions.  The  other.  Rev.  Leonard  Worcester,  was  tlie 
grandfather  of  our  friend.  He  was  a  trustee  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Vermont.      At  first  an  editor,  he  was  afterwanls,  for 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES.  403 

nearly  half  a  century,  the  pastor  at  Peacham,  Vermont, 
where  his  memory  is  still  reverently  cherished. 

Four  of  his  sons,  as  I  make  it  out,  were  ministers.  One 
of  them,  Rev.  John  H.  Worcester,  D.D.,  whose  namesake 
and  only  child  your  professor  was,  still  lives  in  Burlington, 
Vermont,  a  noble  and  most  venerable  figure.  He  was  the 
pastor,  first,  at  St.  Johnsbury,  where  his  son  was  born,  and, 
later,  at  Burlington.  For  some  years  subsequently  he  was 
occupied  in  teaching.  Burdened  with  defective  hearing  at 
his  great  age,  he  has  passed  his  most  recent  years  largely 
within  his  spacious  and  well-filled  library,  in  refined  and 
studious  retirement.  His  patriarchal  form,  cast  in  the 
heroic  mould  which  has  been  common  in  the  family,  his  in- 
tellectual head  and  attractive  face,  his  gentle  and  dignified 
manner,  and  his  pathetic  and  controlled  sorrow,  too  deep  for 
tears  and  too  great  for  words,  would  win  and  touch  any 
heart,  especially  if  it  loved  his  son.  His  is  a  gifted  and 
cultivated  mind,  stored  with  select  and  classified  knowledge, 
and  trained  to  think  upon  high  and  difficult  themes.  Withal, 
its  forces  are  marshalled  by  a  reverent  and  independent 
judgment,  conservative  of  ascertained  realities  and  hospitable 
to  fresh  aspects  of  truth  from  any  quarter.  We  need  not 
wonder  at  what  Professor  Worcester  was  when  we  remember 
that  he  was  not  only  the  son,  but  also,  for  a  third  of  a  cen- 
tury, the  close  companion  of  such  a  man. 

To  this  heritage  and  family  John  Hopkins  Worcester, 
Jr.,  was  born  April  2,  1845.  Clean,  stimulating  blood  flowed 
in  his  infant  veins.  When  self-consciousness  daAvned,  he 
could  look  backward  with  a  sense  of  privilege  and  indebted- 
ness, and  forward  with  a  sense  of  opportunity  and  high 
obligation.  He  found  himself  tenderly  welcomed  in  the  mem- 
bership of  a  respected,  refined  and  unostentatiously  affection- 
ate Christian  home.  He  had  parents  to  whom  he  could  look 
up,  and  who  led  his  youthful  vision  towards  the  Father  in 
heaven.  His  mother,  Martha  P.  Clark,  was  the  daughter  of 
Deacon  Luther  Clark,  of  St.  Johnsbury.  She  was  the 
youngest  of  three  sisters,  and  the  only  one  that  is  not  now 
living.     One  of  her  sisters  married  the  late   Judge   Redfield, 


404  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

for  many  rears  Chief  Justice  of  Vermont.  The  other  became 
the  wife  of  Rev.  Joseph  S.  Gallagher,  once  the  skillful  and 
efficient  treasurer  of  the  seminary.  All  accounts  agree  that 
Professor  Worcester's  mother  was  a  lovely  ^voman,  with  fine 
intellectual  endoAvments  and  a  sweet  Christian  spirit.  She 
died  when  her  son  was  three  years  old,  entreating  him  with 
her  latest  breath  to  love  the  dear  Saviour.  As  he  was  car- 
ried away  from  her  grave,  he  burst  into  tears  with  the  bit- 
ter cry :  "  Now,  I  shan  't  have  a  Mamma  any  more."  But 
it  was  otherwise  ordered.  He  was  favored  as  few  orphans 
have  ever  been.  When  he  w^as  less  than  seven  years  old, 
the  present  wife  of  his  father  became  a  genuine  mother  to 
him.  Of  Scottish  extraction,  high  attainments  and  beautiful 
Christian  character,  her  training  was  invaluable  to  him. 

In  Burlington,  as  in  St.  Johnsbury,  he  was  surrounded 
by  a  quiet,  cultivated  New  England  town.  The  glories  of 
the  Green  Mountains  and  of  the  Adirondacks  beset  him 
round.  The  picturesque  and  historic  Lake  Champlain  lay 
beneath  his  eyes.  Temptations,  like  those  of  a  great  city, 
were  nowhere  obtrusive,  and  there  was  a  wholesome  inspira- 
tion alike  in  the  human  life  and  in  the  natural  scenery  en- 
vironing him.  The  climate,  like  the  moral  standard  of  his 
home,  was  honestly  severe,  but  the  impulses  of  domestic, 
social  and  religious  life  were  warm,  true  and  inviting.  It 
was  a  favored,  happy  lot,  whose  good  influences  abounded 
in  him  to  his  latest  hour  on  earth. 

As  a  boy,  he  appears  to  have  been  precocious,  as  he  cer- 
tainly was  remarkably  handsome.  He  knew  the  alphabet 
from  picture-blocks  when  he  was  only  two  years  old,  and  by 
the  end  of  his  third  year  he  had,  with  a  little  occasional 
help,  taught  himself  to  read.  But  his  native  capacity,  indus- 
try and  modesty,  coupled  with  wise  training,  kept  hira  from 
being  spoiled.  The  intellectual  and  moral  atmosphere  of  his 
home  were  unusually  stimulating,  in  some  particulars,  perhaps, 
too  stimulating  for  an  entirely  symmetrical  development  of 
his  boyish  nature.  It  was  at  first  a  parsonage  and  after- 
wards a  school.  He  Avas  constantly  in  the  company  of  older 
minds.      It  may  be  a  question  whether    his   early  years   had 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES.  405 

enough  either  of  playtime  or  playmates  for  jovial  mental 
health.  At  any  rate,  there  are  indications  that  he  attained 
uncommon  maturity  in  his  youth.  He  became  a  member  of 
the  church  in  his  seventeenth  year.  That  step,  however, 
was  by  no  means  forced  upon  him.  It  was  the  natural 
thing  for  him  to  take  it,  for  he  never  knew  when  he  became 
a  Christian.  His  faith  blossomed  out  like  a  flower  in  spring 
time.  Its  fruits,  too,  were  prompt  to  follow.  While  still 
young,  he  was  one  of  the  original  founders  of  the  Young 
Men's  Christian  Association  in  Burlington,  and  an  effective 
leader  in  Sunday-school  and  mission  work.  Nevertheless, 
his  powers  and  his  useful  activities  continued  to  grow  and  to 
increase  their  harmonious  adjustments  to  the  end  of  his  life. 

After  completing  his  preparatory  courses  under  the  eye 
of  his  father,  he  entered  the  University  of  Vermont,  from 
which  he  graduated  in  1865.  It  was  one  of  the  small 
colleges,  set  upon  the  Acropolis  of  the  Athens  of 
Vermont.  He  was  not  only  well-known  to  the  uncon- 
ventional students,  but  he  enjoyed  also  the  advantages, 
peculiar  to  a  small  college,  of  intimate  association  with 
ripe  professors  who  gave  him  individual  attention.  He 
improved  his  opportunities  and  became  truly  educated. 
Indeed,  he  has  added  distinction  to  the  institution.  The 
honored  president  tells  me  that  all  who  have  known  it  in- 
timately for  the  last  thirty  years  would  be  sure  to  name  him 
among  the  score,  or  even  the  ten,  who  have  had  the  most 
brilliant  and  promising  collegiate  careers.  As  attesting  her 
continued  regard,  the  University  of  Vermont  gave  him  his 
doctorate  degree  in  1885. 

He  entered  upon  his  theological  course  here  in  1867. 
At  the  end  of  his  middle  year  he  went  abroad  and  spent  a 
year  or  more  in  traveling  and  in  studying  at  Berlin  and 
Leipsic.  Returning,  he  graduated  from  this  school  of  the 
prophets  in  1871;  and  up  to  the  5th  of  last  February,  on 
every  day  of  his  life,  he  was  both  an  h(jnor  to  Union  Semi- 
nary, and  an  exalted  type  of  the  ministers  whom  she  has 
trained  for  the  Church  of  God. 

The  chief  work  of  his  noble  life  was  done  in  the  pastor- 


406  THE   UNION  THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

ate,  preaching  the  living  Christ  to  dying  men — to  my  mind 
the  holiest  and  sweetest  vocation  on  earth.  In  these  days 
of  frequent  pastoral  changes,  occasioned  in  part,  no  doubt, 
by  the  exacting  and  exhausting  demands  of  the  work,  but 
far  more,  I  fear,  by  the  restlessness  of  ministers  and  churches, 
let  it  be  noted  both  that  in  almost  twenty  years  he  had  but 
two  charges  and  that  he  left  neither  of  them  because  he 
would  or  because  he  must,  but  solely  in  response  to  an  im- 
perative summons  of  conscience.  He  was  installed  pastor  of 
the  First  Presbyterian  Church  of  South  Orange,  New  Jer- 
sey, January  10,  1872,  and  left  it  in  January,  1883,  to  be- 
come pastor  of  the  Sixth  Presbyterian  Church  of  Chicago. 
His  work  as  preacher  and  pastor  was  of  a  uniform  quality 
throughout,  and  the  quality  was  uniformly  high.  It  was  all 
done  on  his  honor  as  the  servant  of  Jesus  Christ.  None  of 
it  was  slighted,  whether  it  was  public  or  private;  his  study 
and  his  prayer-closet  were  as  faithfully  devoted  to  their  pur- 
poses as  the  pulpit  or  the  platform.  Every  minister  is  mas- 
ter of  his  own  time.  Every  minister  is  likely  to  hear  the 
effusive  praises  of  the  friendly  flatterer,  and  to  be  left  out 
of  hearing  by  his  average  critic.  Consequently,  the  besetting 
sins  of  weak  ministers  are  laziness  and  egotism.  But  my 
brother  was  neither  lazy  nor  egotistical,  for  he  was  not 
weak ;  he  was  faithful,  sincere  and  virile.  For  genuine 
fidelity  towards  God  and  man,  he  was  well-nigh  matchless. 

His  preaching,  as  some  of  you  know,  was  distinguished 
for  thoroughness ;  whether  he  read  from  manuscript,  or  s})oke 
extemporaneously,  as  he  could  do  with  admirable  complete- 
ness, clearness  and  finish,  he  always  brought  beaten  oil  into 
the  sanctuary.  His  published  sermons  on  "Womanhood" 
are  in  evidence.  Unusually  intellectual,  yet  with  the  white 
light  of  great  emotions,  and  with  a  passion  for  saving  the 
M^hole  of  a  man,  he  made  large  demands  upon  his  hearers, 
at  the  same  time  that  he  gave  them  large  supplies  of  thought, 
feeling  and  purpose.  Partly  for  that  reason,  he  was  not,  in 
the  common  apprehension  of  the  word,  a  popular  preacher. 
He  dwelt  in  rather  too  high  and  rare  an  atmosphere  for 
that.      He  appealed  especially  to   the    somewhat   select  class 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCHES.  407 

of  thoughtful  and  educated  minds.  Yet  he  left  indelible 
lines  of  life  upon  the  souls  of  all  regular  attendants,  even 
when  they  were  unconscious  of  the  fact.  He  was  singularly 
unselfish  in  preaching.  It  was  not  a  great  name  nor  a  con- 
spicious  place  that  he  was  seeking,  any  more  than  it  was  a 
fat  salary.  His  first  desire  seemed  to  be  to  fill  the  place 
assigned  to  him,  to  make  Jesus  Christ  conspicious  in  truth 
and  love,  and  to  leave  permanent  gracious  impressions. 

He  was  a  "  house-going "  minister,  and  he  did  not  con- 
fine himself  to  houses  of  any  class,  rich  or  poor,  personally 
friendly  or  personally  indifferent.  To  his  great  personal  re- 
gret he  could  not  easily  win  an  entrance  into  the  affections 
of  a  stranger  or  acquaintance.  He  Avas  too  thorough  for 
that ;  at  a  time  when  much  of  our  pastoral  visitation  con- 
sists largely  of  small  talk,  he  had  no  small  talk  at  all.  He 
had  to  make  his  way  on  his  genuine  merits,  which  he  was 
not  facile  in  exploiting.  But  in  times  of  stress  and  burden, 
when  death  stood  at  the  door  or  devastated  the  home,  he 
was  most  welcome.  There  was  enough  of  him  to  meet  a 
crisis,  and  souls  in  critical  situations  had  faith  in  him,  and 
found  strength  and  peace  in  his  ministrations.  I  have  often 
felt  that  if  I  were  on  my  death-bed,  I  should  prefer  his 
ministry  to  any  other.  He  would  have  told  me  the  truth 
honestly,  completely,  simply  and  affectionately. 

A  good  general  test  of  his  pastoral  efficiency  may  be 
found  in  the  condition  in  which  he  left  eacli  of  his  churches. 
I  fancy  that  one  of  the  surest  tests  of  any  pastor's  career 
comes  to  light  after  he  goes  away.  If  a  church  then  has 
parties  who  say  I  am  of  Paul,  Apollos  or  Cephas,  you  may 
almost  take  it  for  granted  that  there  was  something  radically 
defective  or  selfish  in  his  teaching.  For  some  pastors  seem 
to  brand  the  Master's  sheep  with  their  own  initials.  But  our 
friend  left  the  Master's  high,  unifying  name  in  his  parish- 
ioners' hearts.  They  thought  of  Christ  rather  than  of  him. 
They  remained  united  and  prepared  to  offer  a  common  wel- 
come to  the  succeeding  under-shepherd. 

Such  a  man  needed  human  sympathy — he  got  it.  His 
brethren  learned  to  love  and  trust   him,  and  he  had  a  sweet 


408  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

and  hallowed  domestic  life.  On  October  29,  1.S74,  he  mar- 
ried JNIiss  Harriet  W.  Strong,  a  daughter  of  Edward  Strong, 
M.  D.,  of  Auburndale,  Massachusetts.  Four  children,  two 
boys  and  tM^o  girls,  were  given  to  them,  all  born  in  Orange 
and  all  living  still  excepting  little  Martha,  who  is  with  her 
father.  Let  him  who  can,  believe  in  the  celibacy  of  the 
clergy.  Our  friend  found  almost  an  ideal  of  the  kingdom 
of  God  on  earth  in  his  family.  Strenuous  man  as  he  Avas, 
with  deep-seated  convictions,  he  was  so  tolerant  of  tlie  right- 
ful opinions  of  others  that,  as  I  believe,  he  never  once, 
during  their  eighteen  years  of  married  life,  crossed  any  real 
independent  judgment  of  Mrs.  Worcester's.  Nor  was  he  ever 
dictatorial,  unreasonable  or  merely  suppressive  towards  his 
children.  A  strong  man  will  be  considerate  and  fair,  if  he 
be  only  strong  enough.  He  was  strong  enough,  and  he  had 
sufficient  reason.  His  children  are  worthy  of  him.  His  wife 
was  like-minded  with  himself.  With  the  same  Puritan  blood 
and  New  England  culture,  with  almost  equal  gifts  of  mind 
and  heart,  she  loved  to  be  in  his  shadow,  but,  more  than 
she  will  ever  acknoAvledge  or  even  know,  she  directed  and 
inspired  his  life.  He  owed  her  much  and,  through  him,  so 
do  you  and  I. 

It  is  not  strange  that  such  a  man,  with  such  gifts,  such 
a  pastoral  experience  and  such  a  home,  should  come  to  love 
with  unspeakable  ardor  the  ministry  of  the  Gospel.  He  often 
said  to  his  nearest  intimates,  that  he  thought  no  other  work 
in  life  comparable  to  it.  He  left  it,  therefore,  with  as  much 
reluctance  as  he  entered  it.  When  he  was  called  in  May, 
1891,  to  the  chair  of  Systematic  Theology  in  Hartford,  he 
was  in  actual  distress  until  he  concluded  that  it  M^as  his 
privilege  to  decline  it.  He  loved  the  pastorate,  and  although 
he  was  from  a  Congregational  family,  he  had  an  intelligent 
and  discriminating  love  for  the  Presbyterian  Church.  Two 
months  later  came  the  call  from  you.  He  appreciated  the 
great  honor  of  it,  as  his  friends  did  ;  but  lie  shrank  from  it, 
with  characteristic  diffidence,  and  the  accei)tancc  of  it  recpiircd 
no  small  degree  of  personal  self-denial.  It  was  not  the  line 
of  life  which  he  had  chosen,  nor  the  department  of  theologi- 


BIOGRAHICAL    SKETCHES.  409 

cal  instruction  which  he  preferred.  He  consulted  his  close 
friends  and  they,  in  spite  of  their  wishes  to  keep  him  in  the 
])astorate,  advised  him  to  acce])t,  because  they  regarded  him 
as  an  ordained  leader  of  leaders  and  because  they  hoped  that 
he,  with  his  conservative  temper,  non-partisan  theological 
attitude  and  independent  yet  progressive  mind,  might  do 
something  to  aid  a  beloved  institution,  and  to  heal  the  exist- 
ing lamentable  breach  between  brethren  in  the  same  church. 
Now,  that  he  has  gone  home,  shall  we  not  hope  and  pray 
that  the  breach  will  be  closed  ? 

During  the  last  eighteen  months  of  his  life,  as  his  strength 
was  failing  and  his  life  Avas  fading  away,  some  of  us  have 
wondered  whether  his  coming  was  not  a  mistak,e.  But  he 
did  not  feel  any  such  questioning.  Trusting  to  no  human 
counsel  for  the  final  decision,  he  had  prayed  fervently  for 
divine  guidance ;  he  fully  believed  that  he  had  been  led  by 
God's  spirit,  and  that  the  transfer  was  a  part  of  the  gracious 
Father's  plan  for  him  and  for  us  all.  He  died  as  he  had 
lived,  better  than  submissive, — acquiescent.  Filial  hearts, 
therefore,  will  not  be  impatient  or  complaining  that  his  work 
here  ended  when  it  seemed  only  to  have  begun.  Its  influence, 
I  am  sure,  will  not  be  transient.  I  know  his  work  among 
you  was  rapidly  growing  in  interest  to  him.  You  know,  as 
I  cannot,  how  gifted,  cultured,  genuine,  devoted  and  open- 
hearted  it  was  becoming.  It  would  naturally  have  special 
attractions  for  strong,  candid  and  manly  students.  Doubt- 
less, he  was  in  the  main  a  disciple  of  your  epoch-making 
teacher.  Dr.  Henry  B.  Smith ;  so  true  a  disciple  that  he  could 
be  independent  of  his  teacher  in  important  particulars.  He 
had  the  same  reverent,  discerning  spirit,  the  same  firm,  con- 
servative and  delicate  grasp  of  generic  essentials,  the  same 
undisturbed  sense  of  liberty  as  to  all  undetermined  and  inci- 
dental matters.  Equally  with  that  master,  he  spent  his 
strength  in  strenuous  seeking  after  truth,  and  he  would  dare 
encourage  his  pupils  to  think  for  themselves,  and  to  besiege 
him  with  all  sorts  of  honest  questions.  If  he  had  lived,  I 
am  sure  he  would  have  filled  his  place  with  ever-increasing 
power  and  with  indubitable  adequacy  and  renown. 


410  THE   UNION  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

No  one  could  accurately  measure  his  intellectual  processes 
without  noting  his  predominant  moral  qualities.  Remember- 
ing both,  I  call  him  a  great  man.  But,  lest  my  own  esti- 
mate of  him  may  be  partial  and  faulty,  let  me  adapt  the 
words  of  another  friend.  His  greatness  consisted  in  his  sur- 
passing perspicuity  of  mind,  in  his  rare  capacity  to  separate 
a  complex  problem  into  its  simple  elements,  in  his  wonderful 
power  of  thorough  and  convincing  statement,  in  his  supreme 
loyalty  to  truth  and  his  courageous  advocacy  of  it,  under  all 
circumstances,  in  his  genuine  humility  of  soul,  which  enabled 
him  to  see  the  truth  easily,  yet  never  permitted  him  to  seek 
prominence  for  himself,  in  his  sincere  and  unpretentious 
candor,  in  his  loving  catholicity  of  spirit  and  in  the  complete 
consecration  of  his  unusual  powers  and  acquirements  to  the 
Light  of  the  World. 

The  key  to  his  character,  I  believe,  will  be  found  in  the 
fact  that  moral  considerations  controlled  him.  The  chief 
defect  which  I  have  heard  ascribed  to  him  was  an  apparent 
reserve  of  manner.  His  exterior  gave  to  the  average  person 
meeting  him  the  impression  that  he  was  cold.  A  few  acquaint- 
ances have  thought  that  he  was  even  haughty.  But  his 
intimate  friends  knew  that  this  view  of  his  character  was 
radically  mistaken.  His  heart  was  always  warm.  He  had 
an  ample  capacity  for  true  friendship.  He  depended  upon 
the  love  of  friends,  hungered  for  the  good-will  of  all, 
and  suffered  often  because  he  could  not  facilely  show 
his  own  good-will.  He  could  not  tell  you  to  your  face  that 
he  loved  you.  If  his  life  did  not  show  it,  he  was  powerless. 
It  was  one  of  his  heavy  burdens  that  he  had  to  force  his 
way  where  many  another  could  win  an  entrance  to  the 
human  heart.  He  was  utterly  unable  to  wear  his  heart 
upon  his  sleeve. 

As  conscientious  a  man  as  I  have  ever  known,  he  was 
hard  upon  himself,  but  gracious  and  tolerant  towards  the 
sincere  moral  postures  of  others.  For  this  reason  questions 
which  belonged  to  the  pure  ethical  realm  appeared  to  give 
him  unusually  little  trouble.  He  was  simply  above  the  reach 
of  many  of  the  ordinary  temptations  of  life.     When  he  per- 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES.  411 

ceived  that  a  thing  was  right  or  obligatory,  his  doubts  about 
it  were  settled. 

If,  in  matters  of  expediency  or  questions  of  the  reason, 
he  would  sometimes  hesitate,  you  might  be  sure  that  con- 
scientious scruples  were  at  the  bottom  of  his  hesitancy,  and 
that  he  could  not  as  yet  make  out  his  moral  bearings.  The 
moment  that  he  discerned  distinctly  what  he  ought  to  do,  he 
became  as  bold  as  a  lion.  It  was  a  curious  combination, 
timid  as  to  his  own  personality,  even  as  to  his  judgment ; 
perfectly  fearless  as  to  duty.  The  historic  speech  at  Detroit 
is  an  instance  in  point.  To  his  intimates  it  has  always 
seemed  characteristic  rather  than  exceptional  in  its  intellectual 
power,  its  Christian  spirit,  its  moral  weight.  For  days  he 
had  been  urged  to  speak.  But  he  shrank  from  the  conspicu- 
ous responsibility.  Though  he  passed  almost  sleepless  nights 
over  the  matter,  he  still  refused  to  say  a  word.  But  things 
appeared  to  him  to  be  going  wrong.  Finally,  alone,  upon 
his  knees,  it  became  plain  to  him  that  the  Master  sunimoned 
him  to  the  task.  Then  his  lips  were  touched  with  fire,  and, 
even  if  the  whole  world  had  been  against  him,  nothing  could 
have  swerved  him,  more  than  Isaiah,  from  the  i)urpose  to  utter 
his  convictions  boldly,  tenderly,  mightily,  under  the  resistless 
inspiration  of  the  sense  of  duty.  This  is  why  my  friend's 
speech  will  live  and  quicken  after  the  mere  controversies  of 
that  hour  are  the  forgotten  dust  of  logomachy. 

Contrary  to  the  opinions  of  some  acquaintances,  he  had  an 
enthusiastic  nature.  His  later  boyhood  in  Burlington  furnishes 
a  typical  illustration.  It  seems  that  one  evening,  shortly 
after  dark,  fire  broke  out  in  a  building  down  near  the  lake 
shore  under  the  little  bluff.  The  boys  started  for  it  in- 
stantly on  a  run.  He  outran  the  others,  and,  in  going 
over  the  side  of  the  bluff,  he  made  a  misstep,  fell  and  broke 
his  leg.  When  the  others  overtook  him,  they  wanted  to 
carry  him  home  at  once.  But  he  said  :  "  No,  no,  leave 
me  here ;  go  and  help  put  out  the  fire ;  take  me  home  after- 
wards." 

Under  that  calm  manner  and  controlled  temper,  there 
was  an  intensity  of  conviction,  of  purpose,  of  feeling,  of  cour- 


412  THE    UNION  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

age,  of  ideal  vision,  which  explains  apparent  anomalies  in  his 
finished  career  and  which  promised  lieroic  achievements  in 
the  withheld  second  half  of  his  life-time.  It  will  teach  us 
why  he  was  constant  and  tireless  in  every  form  of  faithful- 
ness, to  his  conscience,  to  his  father,  his  wife  and  cliildren 
and  his  friends,  to  the  churches  which  he  served,  to  the 
seminary,  to  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  He  was  faithful  in  the 
least  and  faithful  also  in  much,  faithful  alike  in  service  and 
in  suifering. 

What  is  all  this  but  to  say,  by  way  of  summary  and  pre- 
eminence, that  he  was  a  gifted,  manly,  true-hearted  Christian. 
His  life  amply  exemplified  the  title  of  one  of  my  favorites 
among  his  sermons,  "Christianity,  a  Virile  Religion."  He 
exemplified  it  also  in  the  supreme  hour.  He  died  at  Lake- 
wood,  New  Jersey,  alone  with  his  wife  and  his  Saviour. 
When  it  became  plain  to  the  physician  about  nine  o'clock  on 
that  Sabl)ath  evening  that  he  was  soon  to  enter  into  rest,  she 
went  to  him  and  said  :  "  Well,  dear,  you  won't  need  to  suffer 
much  longer."  "Then,"  said  he,  "you  think  I  am  going?" 
"Yes,"  she  answered,  with  the  simple  truthfulness  of  their 
life.  He  waited  half  a  minute,  and  then  replied  :  "  We 
should  send  some  telegrams ; "  that  is,  to  his  children  and 
father  and  nearest  friends.  Brave,  self-forgetful,  resolute  to 
the  end  !  A  kind-hearted  lady  in  the  hotel  came  to  the  door 
to  ask  them  if  she  should  not  stay  with  them  during  that 
awful  ordeal.  But  it  was  he  who,  looking  towards  her  with 
a  grateful  smile,  answered :  "  No,  we  will  watch  it  out 
together."  Love  was  sufficient  and  triumphant.  Presently, 
Mrs.  Worcester  asked  if  he  felt  ready  to  go.  Observe  the 
reply  of  that  man  of  white  character  and  noble  life.  He  just 
said  :  "  Only  as  I  trust  in  my  Redeemer."  They  prayed  to- 
gether— he  for  patience,  and  she  that  he  may  be  released 
from  physical  agony.  I  shall  never  think  of  that  man  and 
that  woman,  their  cliildren  absent,  sitting  alone,  hand  in 
hand,  before  the  King  who  waited  with  the  crown,  not  a 
tear  in  their  eyes,  but  praying  with  unbroken  voices  to 
God  their  Father,  without  rejoicing  that  heroism  still  lingers 
upon  earth. 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES.  413 

Henry  Jackson  Van  Dyke,  D.D.  My  first  acquaint- 
ance with  Dr.  Van  Dyke  goes  back  to  the  summer  of  1856. 
I  met  him  at  Sharon  Springs  and  we  made  an  excursion 
together  to  Howe's  Cave.  It  was  a  charming  day  and  he 
ran  over  with  high  spirits  and  good  fellowship.  Although 
he  was  Old  School  and  I  New  School,  we  at  once  took  a 
liking  for  each  other,  which  grew  stronger  and  more 
affectionate  as  the  years  went  on.  After  the  reunion  we 
served  together  on  an  important  church  committee  and 
thus  learned  to  know  each  other  better.  With  the  exception 
of  Dr.  Briggs,  he  sympathized  with  me  in  special  fondness 
for  the  old  mystical  writers  of  the  17tli  century  more  than 
any  one  else.  He  was  a  noble  specimen  of  Christian  man- 
hood and  all  ray  recollections  of  him  are  most  pleasant. 
I  used  to  admire  the  beautiful  relation  which  existed 
between  Dr.  Van  Dyke  and  his  two  sons.  He  was  their 
comrade  and  dear  friend,  as  well  as  their  loving  father. 
One  of  my  last  recollections  of  him  is  his  look  of 
honest  pride  and  joy,  as  he  sat  on  the  platform  beside  ex- 
President  Cleveland  and  Mj'.  Choate,  listening  to  a  glowing 
address  by  his  son  Henry,  on  the  public  charities  of  New 
York.  To  this  son  the  reader  is  indebted  for  the  following 
vivid  and  truthful  sketch : 

A  life  of  great  simplicity,  directed  by  a  steady  purpose 
towards  a  simple  aim,  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus 
Christ ;  a  character  of  rare  strength  and  tenderness,  earnest- 
ness and  generosity,  frankness  and  force ;  a  career  of  large 
and  tranquil  usefulness  as  the  bishop  of  a  Christian  church 
in  the  Presbyterian  communion,  this  is  what  we  have  to  re- 
call in  making  a  brief  memorial  of  Henry  Jackson  Van 
Dyke,  who  was  elected  in  the  spring  of  1891,  to  the  pro- 
fessorship of  Systematic  Theology  in  Union  Theological  Sem- 
inary, but  died  on  May  25th  of  the  same  year,  before  he  had 
entered  upon  the  labors  of  his  new  office. 


414  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

He  was  born  on  March  2,  1822,  at  Abingdon,  Pennsyl- 
vania, and  was  the  favorite  son  of  Frederick  Augustus  Van 
Dyke,  M.  D.  From  boyhood  he  was  marked  by  the  firm- 
ness of  liis  religious  faith  and  the  directness  of  his  moral 
purposes.  He  was  not  a  waverer.  He  was  a  straightfor- 
ward believer  and  a  fearless  follower  of  his  creed.  He  was 
the  first  member  of  his  immediate  family  to  take  an  out- 
spoken and  unreserved  stand  for  Christ.  Many  years  after- 
wards he  had  the  joy  of  welcoming  his  father  and  mother 
to  the  full  communion  of  the  Lord  Jesus. 

Educated  at  Yale  College,  the  University  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, and  Princeton  Theological  Seminary,  he  was  licensed 
to  preach  by  the  Third  Presbytery  of  Philadelphia  in  June, 
1845,  at  the  age  of  twenty-three  years,  and  immediately 
afterwards  became  the  pastor  of  the  Second  Presbyterian 
Church  of  Bridgeton,  N.  J.  He  was  married  in  the  same 
year  to  Miss  Henrietta  Ashmead  of  Philadelphia,  who  bore 
him  six  children,  of  whom  four  died  in  early  childhood  and 
two  sons  are  still  living. 

His  pastorate  at  Bridgeton  lasted  seven  years,  and  was 
followed  by  a  brief  but  fruitful  work  in  charge  of  the  First 
Presbyterian  Church  of  Germantown,  Pa.  From  this  place 
he  was  called  in  1853,  to  the  First  Presbyterian  Church  in 
Remsen  Street,  Brooklyn.  Here  he  remained  for  thirty-eight 
years,  with  only  a  short  interval  of  tentative  labor  as  pastor- 
elect  of  the  First  Presbyterian  Church  at  Nashville,  Tenn., 
from  which  he  returned,  after  six  months'  absence,  to  his 
Brooklyn  parish  in  1872. 

The  place  which  he  occupied  in  the  city  where  his  life- 
work  was  done,  was  distinctive  and  honorable.  There  were 
many  storms  and  conflicts  in  church  and  state  during  his 
long  pastorate.  His  strong  and  definite  convictions  often 
forced  him  to  take  a  position  Avhich  was  opposed  to  that  of 
his  associates  and  unpopular  with  the  majority.  He  was  an 
old-fiishioned  State  rights  democrat  in  his  political  views,  and 
an  open-minded  conservative  in  his  ecclesiastical  ])references. 
He  never  made  any  secret  of  his  opinions,  nor  did  he  mod- 
ify them  for  the  sake  of  expediency.      But    through   all   the 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES.  415 

controversies  and  strugo;les  of  these  tempestuous  years  he 
kept  his  temper  sweet,  his  affections  warm,  liis  courage  clear, 
and  his  honor  clean  by  living  in  the  kindliest  human  fel- 
lowship with  men  and  women  of  his  flock  and  in  the  closest 
personal  communion  with  his  Divine  Master.  He  won  the 
admiration  of  opponents  by  his  candor  and  fairness,  the  love 
of  friends  by  his  loyalty  and  unselfishness,  and  the  respect 
of  all  men  by  his  unquestionalile  integrity  and  devotion  to  duty. 

He  was  characteristically  a  manly  man.  Fond  of  the  free 
intercourse  of  comrades,  he  cared  little  for  the  forms  of  arti- 
ficial society.  A  great  lover  of  children,  he  refreshed  his 
mind  and  his  heart  by  joining  in  their  sports  without  re- 
straint. The  boys  and  girls  of  Brooklyn  knew  him  as  a  good 
friend  and  a  merry  comrade.  The  dignities  of  life  rested 
lightly  upon  him ;  he  was  not  indiiferent  to  them,  but  he 
never  let  them  chain  him  to  a  ponderous  solemnity.  He 
had  a  lively  sense  of  humor  and  was  always  ready  to  laugh 
at  clean  fun.  His  short,  vigorous,  active  frame,  fitted  him 
for  out-of-door  life.  He  loved  nature,  and  was  always  at 
home  in  the  woods  or  on  the  waters.  Angling  was  his  fav- 
orite recreation.  He  was  a  man  whom  Izaak  Walton  would 
have  loved. 

In  his  study  he  was  industrious  and  systematic,  a  wide 
reader,  Avith  a  taste  for  the  substantial  and  profital)le,  rather 
than  for  the  brilliant  and  sensational.  The  strongest  in- 
fluence in  his  intellectual  development  were  the  English 
poets,  of  whom  he  preferred  Milton  and  Shakspere,  Words- 
worth and  Tennyson,  and  the  Puritan  divines,  in  whose 
works  he  was  profoundly  versed.  He  did  not  care  much  for 
metaphysics  except  as  he  found  it  in  the  form  of  theology. 
He  preferred  history  to  fiction,  though  he  frequently  de- 
lighted to  read  the  greater  objective  novels,  which  deal  more 
with  the  real  facts  of  life,  than  with  subtle  speculations 
about  them.  He  never  succeeded  in  reading  through  a  novel 
of  society,  or  a  psychological  romance.  When  he  was  tired, 
if  it  was  not  possible  for  him  to  go  a-fishing  on  a  mountain 
stream,  he  would  turn  to  "  Paradise  Lost,"  or  to  "  In  Me- 
morium  "  or  to  Wordsworth's  poems,  for  rest   and   refresh- 


416        THE  UNrn.v  theological  seminary. 

ment.  But  all  the  other  reading  that  he  did  was  less,  in 
amount  and  in  interest  than  his  reading  of  the  English  Bible. 

He  published  but  two  books ;  a  small  volume  of  sermons 
on  "  The  Lord's  Prayer,"  and  a  larger  volume  of  lectures  on 
*'  The  Church :  Her  Ministry  and  Sacraments."  The  former 
may  stand  as  representative  of  his  method  of  preaching; 
dignified,  earnest,  Scriptural,  authoritative,  and  specifically 
directed  to  the  inward  experience  of  religion.  The  latter 
presents  his  matured  views  on  theological  subjects.  There 
was  an  unmistakable  change  in  his  convictions  in  this  region, 
T5et\veen  his  earlier  and  his  later  ministry,  a  change  which 
was  not  in  the  nature  of  a  revolution,  but  of  a  growth,  an 
expansion.  His  theology  did  not  become  more  loose,  but  did 
become  more  simple.  He  worked  it  out  in  the  school  of 
practical  ministry  to  men.  His  attachment  to  the  old  doc- 
trines of  divine  sovereignty,  atonement  by  the  cross  of  Christ, 
regeneration  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  salvation  through  faith 
in  the  Divine  Christ,  was  strengthened  as  the  years  went  on. 
But  he  learned  also  to  set  these  truths  in  larger  relations 
with  life,  and  to  welcome  the  interpretation  which  was  given 
to  them  by  men  of  different  schools,  and  to  rejoice  in  the 
substantial  unity  of  the  evangelical  faith.  The  sacraments 
became  more  dear  to  him  as  the  universal  signs  and  seals 
of  spiritual  grace,  and  the  oneness  of  the  Christian  ministry 
as  a  divine  institution  was  an  article  of  his  belief  in  which 
he  found  great  comfort  and  sti;ength. 

In  1876  he  was  elected  Moderator  of  the  Presbyterian 
General  Assembly,  which  met  in  Brooklyn.  In  1877  he  went 
to  Edinburp'h  as  a  delegate  to  the  First  General  Presbyterian 
Council.  On  several  occasions  he  was  elected  to  the  chair  of 
Systematic  Theology  in  various  seminaries — among  which 
Alleghany  and  San  Francisco  may  be  nKmtioned.  But  these 
invitations  he  always  declined,  until  the  election  came  in  1891, 
which  called  him  to  Union  Seminary  in  New  York.  He 
rightly  regarded  this  election  as  a  great  honor.  Coming 
unanimously  as  it  did,  from  a  Board  of  Directors  representing 
many  shades  of  theological  opinion,  and  in  a  time  of  contro- 
versy and  strife  in  the  Presbyterian  Church,  it  was  a  tribute 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES.  417 

to  his  reputation  as  a  man  of  tlioiiglit  as  well  as  of  action, 
a  recognition  of  the  soundness  of  his  faith  and  the  fairness 
of  his  spirit,  a  sign  of  liberty  and  peace  within  the  Church. 

It  was  in  this  spirit,  with  many  unnecessary  misgivings 
as  to  his  own  fitness  for  the  place,  but  with  a  clear,  strong 
desire  to  serve  the  Church  and  the  seminary  as  one  in  their 
interests  and  one  in  their  allegiance  to  Christ,  that  he  accepted 
the  invitation.  * 

He  closed  his  fruitful  and  blessed  ministry  in  Brooklyn 
in  his  sixty-ninth  year,  in  the  fulness  of  his  powers,  with  a 
long  and  beautiful  record  of  work  behind  him,  and  with  the 
love  and  reverence  of  his  people  crowning  his  labors  in  full 
measure. 

He  turned  his  face  with  cheerful  courage  toward  his  new 
task.  He  was  confident  that  the  evangelical  theology  in 
which  he  was  grounded  by  years  of  practical  preaching  as 
well  as  of  earnest  study,  was  a  living  theology.  He  felt 
that  it  could  l)e  presented  simply  and  directly,  on  a  Scrip- 
tural basis,  in  such  a  way.  that  students  for  the  ministry  \^  \ 
would  see  its  moral  reasonableness,"its  Biblical  authority,  and 
its  adaptation  to  the  needs  of  mankind.  He  believed  that 
such  a  presentation  was  entirely  consistent  with  the  freedom 
of  scholarship  and  Biblical  research,  and  that  it  would  pro- 
mote the  purity  and  peace  of  the  Church.  He  looked  forward 
to  this  work  with  the  interest,  the  enthusiasm,  the  courage  of 

*  The  following  letter  was  written  at  tlie  time  : 

Brooklyn,  April  26,  1891. 
My  Dear  Dr.  Hastings  : 

If  the  Board  of  Directors  confirm  the  judgment  of  the  Nominating 
Committee  in  regard  to  my  fitness  for  the  Chair  of  Dogmatic  Theology  in 
the  Union  Seminary,  it  is  my  desire  and  purpose  to  accept  the  position. 

I  am  not  without  great  misgivings  in  coming  to  this  conclusion.  But 
I  dare  not  allow  my  feai-s  to  oppose  the  judgment  of  such  friends  as  you 
and  the  rest  of  the  committee.  God  seems  to  be  leading  me  in  the  direc- 
tion to  which  you  point.  In  Him  I  put  my  trust.  May  he  guide  us  all 
to  do  the  best  for  His  glory  and  the  peace  of  the  church.  To  be  thought 
worthy  of  the  position  to  which  you  purpose  to  call  me  is  a  crown  to  my 
life-work  such  as  I  have  never  dared  to  hope  for. 

Afiectionately  yours  in  Christ, 

Henry  J.  Van  Dyke. 


418  THE   UNION  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

a  young  man,  and  with  the  steadiness,  the  breadth  of  mind, 
the  patience  of  a  veteran. 

But  God's  plan  for  him  was  different.  On  Monday,  the 
25th  of  May,  after  preaching  twice  in  his  old  church  on  the 
preceding  Sabbath,  he  was  suddenly  attacked  by  agina  jiedoris. 
Almost  without  a  warning  God's  finger  had  touched  his  large 
heart,  and  he  fell  quietly  asleep.  His  last  words  were,  "I 
am  ready  to  go." 

The  University  of  Wisconsin  gave  him  the  degree  of 
Doctor  of  Divinity  in  1860.  He  was  a  member  of  the 
Presbyterian  Board  of  Home  Missions  and  a  Director  of 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  for  many  years. 

William  Greenough  Thayee  Shedd  (1863-1893)  was 
born  at  Acton,  Massachusetts,  June  21,  1820.  He  studied 
at  the  University  of  Vermont  and  was  graduated  in  the  class 
of  1839.  A  year  later  he  entered  Andover  Theological  Sem- 
inary, and  not  long  after  his  graduation  was  ordained  and 
installed  as  pastor  of  the  Congregational  church  of  Brandon, 
Vermont.  In  1845  he  was  appointed  professor  of  English 
Literature  in  the  University  of  Vermont.  In  1852  he  accept- 
ed a  call  to  Auburn  Theological  Seminary  as  professor  of 
Sacred  Rhetoric.  The  next  year  he  took  the  chair  of  Eccle- 
siastical History  at  Andover.  Here  he  remained  until  1862, 
when  he  became  co-pastor  with  the  venerable  Gurdiner 
Spring  of  the  Brick  Church  in  the  city  of  New  York.  The 
next  year  he  accepted  a  call  to  the  chair  of  Biblical  Litera- 
ture in  the  Union  Theological  Seminary,  and  in  1874  was 
transferred  _to  the  chair  of  Systematic  Theology,  occupying  it 
until  1893,  when  he  resigned  and  was  made  Professor  Emeri- 
tus. His  few  remaining  days  were  spent  in  congenial  literary 
work. 

The  University  of  Vermont  gave  him  the  honorary  degree 
of  D.D.  and  the  University  of  the  City  of  New  York  that 
of  LL.D. 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES.  419 

Dr.  Shedd  was  one  of  the  ablest  and  most  accomplished 
theologians  our  country  has  produced.  In  pure  literary  cul- 
ture he  had  few  equals.  Among  American  divines  Dr.  Charles 
Hodge,  Professor  Park  of  Andover,  Henry  B.  Smith,  Philip 
Schaif,  and  several  others  may  have  surpassed  him  along 
certain  lines  of  theological  scholarship,  both  in  study  and 
action ;  but  no  one  surpassed  him  as  a  master  of  lucid  and 
vigorous  English  style,  or  in  the  high  quality  of  his  thinking. 
Books,  especially  the  best  books,  were  his  utmost  delight. 
He  came  early  under  the  influence  of  Coleridge  ;  and,  after 
President  Marsh  of  the  University  of  Vermont,  did  more 
than  any  other  man  to  render  the  writings  of  that  great 
Christian  philosopher  a  power  in  the  intellectual  life  of  New 
England.  He  was  indeed,  after  Dr.  Marsh's  death,  the  fore- 
most disciple  of  Coleridge  in  this  country.  His  memory  is 
fairly  entitled  to  this  honor.  Among  the  leaders  of  theo- 
logical opinion  in  his  day  no  one  could  be  compared  with 
Dr.  Shedd  in  intimate  knowledge  of  Coleridge's  teaching,  or 
in  effective  labor  to  spread  it.  No  better  evidence  of  this  is 
needed  than  his  edition  of  Coleridge's  prose  writings,  and 
the  very  able  essay  which  introduced  it  to  the  public. 

Dr.  Shedd's  connection  with  the  Union  Theological  Sem- 
inary in  the  city  of  New  York  lasted  nearly  a  third  of  a 
century.  He  brought  to  it  both  as  teacher  and  preacher  a 
high  reputation ;  and  his  long  service  in  it  carried  his 
influence  far  and  wide  over  the  country  and  the  Morld.  He 
was  a  man  of  profound  convictions,  a  lover  of  truth  for 
truth's  sake,  ardent  and  fearless  in  asserting  what  he  believed, 
and  armed  with  a  logic  which  never  flinched  under  the 
pressure  of  any  difficulties.  His  orthodoxy  was  of  the  old 
Augustinian  and  Calvinistic  type ;  and  it  grew  stronger,  I 
think,  with  the  advancing  years.  His  colleagues  in  Union 
Seminary  by  no  means  agreed  with  all  liis  premises  or  with 


420  T^H^   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

all  his  conclusions ;  nor  did  all  of  his  pupils.  But  his 
colleagues  and  his  pupils  alike  honored  and  loved  him  for 
his  manly  qualities,  his  simplicity  and  godly  sincerity,  and 
the  many  charms,  both  natural  and  spiritual,  which  adorned 
his  character.  In  the  unhappy  conflict  between  the  seminary 
and  the  General  Assembly,  which  grew  out  of  the  case  of 
Dr.  Briggs,  he  took  little  or  no  part,  so  far  as  I  know. 
But  in  the  whole  matter  of  the  so-called  higher  criticism  as 
represented  by  Dr.  Briggs  he  took  an  active  part,  writing  and 
speaking  against  it  with  great  decision.  And  surely  nobody 
that  knew  him  well,  could  doubt  for  a  moment  that  he  did 
it  all  as  a  painful  duty  and  in  the  fear  of  God. 

Among  Dr.  Shedd's  more  important  writings  are  "  History 
of  Christian  Doctrine,"  New  York  and  Edinburgh,  1865,  2 
volumes.  "Homiletics  and  Pastoral  Theology,"  1867. 
"Sermons  to  the  Natural  Man,"  1871  ;  "Theological  Essays," 
1877  ;  "Literary  Essays,"  1878  ;  "Commentary  on  Romans," 
1879;  "Sermons  to  the  Spiritual  Man,"  1884 ;  "The  Doc- 
trine of  Endless  Punishment,"  1885 ;  "Dogmatic  Theology//, 
_1889j^2  volumes. 

Philip  Schaff  (1870-1893)  was  born  at  Coire,  Swit- 
zerland, January  1,  1819.  He  studied  at  Coire,  in  the 
gymnasium  at  Stuttgart,  and  in  the  universities  of  Tubingen, 
Halle  and  Berlin  ;  later,  he  traveled  as  tutor  to  a  young 
Prussian  nobleman  through  Italy,  returned  to  Berlin  in  1842 
and  lectured  in  the  university  there  as  pnvat-docent  on 
Exegesis  and  Church  History. 

In  1844  he  was  called  to  a  chair  in  the  Theological  Semi- 
nary of  the  German  Reformed  Church  of  the  United  States 
at  Mercersburg,  Pennsylvania.  The  next  year  he  was  tried 
for  heresy  before  the  Synod  of  York  and  acquitted.  His 
labors  at  Mercersburg  were  most  abuntlant.      Besides  lectur- 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCHES.  421 

ing  on  all  branches  of  theology,  he  served  as  chairman  of 
two  committees  to  which  was  entrusted  the  task  of  preparing 
a  new  liturgy  and  a  new  hymn  book.  Both  were  chiefly 
written  by  him  and  passed  into  general  use  in  the  German 
Reformed  Church.  During  the  civil  war  Mercersburg  was 
drawn  into  the  struggle  and  the  seminary  turned  into  a 
military  hospital.  Late  in  1863  Dr.  Schaff  removed  to  New 
York  and  became  secretary  of  the  New  York  Sabbath  Com- 
mittee. During  this  period,  in  addition  to  his  indefatigable 
labors  among  the  German  population  in  behalf  of  a  better 
Sabbath  observance,  he  gave  courses  of  lectures  on  Church 
History,  at  Andover,  Hartford  and  New  York.  In  1870 
he  became  Professor  of  Theological  Encyclopedia  and  Chris- 
tian Symbolism  in  the  Union  Theological  Seminary.  In 
1872  he  was  transferred  to  the  Hebrew  chair,  and  in  1875 
to  that  of  Sacred  Literature.  In  1887  he  succeeded  Dr. 
Hitchcock  as  Professor  of  Church  History.  He  was^  one  of 
the_^unders  and  also  the  honorary  secretary  of  the  American 
branch  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance.  He  crossed  the  ocean  many 
times  in  the  service  of  the  Alliance  and  of  the  Alliance  of 
the  Reformed  Churches.  He  was  president  of  the  American 
Bible  Revision  Committee,  which  he  organized  at  the  request 
of  the  British  Committee.  His  labors  of  this  description 
were  extraordinary,  as  also  the  skill,  ability  and  generous 
self-devotion  with  which  he  performed  them.  He  surpassed 
all  the  men  I  ever  knew  in  the  extent,  variety  and  fruitful 
results  of  his  practical,  literary,  and  theological  activities. 
One  is  fairly  staggered  in  reading  over  a  list  of  the  books 
he  wrote,  the  journeys  he  made,  the  societies  he  founded, 
the  plans  he  formed,  the  addresses  he  delivered,  the  funds 
he  raised,  and  the  solid,  lasting  effects  he  produced  in 
furtherance  of  good  learning,  Christian  union  and  fellowship, 
and    other    vital    interests    of   the    cause    and    kingdom    of 


422  THE   UNION  THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

Jesiis  Christ.  Of  all  his  books,  as  I  often  told  him,  "  The 
Creeds  of  Christendom  "  seemed  to  me  the  most  valuable.  1 
doubt  if  any  other  Christian  scholar  on  either  side  of  the 
Atlantic  could  have  written  it.  I  had  the  privilege  of  being 
his  oldest  American  friend.  From  our  first  meeting  under 
Tholuck's  roof  at  Halle,  in  1839,  to  our  last  walk  together 
through  the  Central  Park  in  New  York  a  few  days  before 
his  death,  in  1893,  our  attachment  to  each  other  and  our 
fellowship  in  Christ  and  His  truth  grew  ever  stronger  and 
more  full  of  mutual  comfort  and  good  cheer. 

Dr.  Schaif  was  greatly  favored  in  leaving  behind  him  a 
son  to  walk  in  his  footsteps,  and  to  give  to  the  Christian 
public  the  story  of  his  life. 

Among  the  many  tributes  which  crowned  the  fiftieth 
anniversary  of  Dr.  Schaff's  theological  course,  and  which 
followed  his  death,  I  select  a  single  one  as  fairly  rejjresent- 
ing  all  the  rest.  The  following  are  the  main  sections  of  a  con- 
gratulatory address  sent  to  him  by  the  theological  faculty  of  the 
university  of  Berlin,  which,  it  is  understood,  was  written  by 
Professor  Harnack.  In  his  acknowledgment  Dr.  Schaif 
declared  he  could  not  "have  wished  for  a  nobler  and  more 
honorable  testimonial  to  his   labors." 

Berlin,  November  16,  1892. 

Most  Worthy  Sir,  Most  Honored  Colleague  : 

On  this,  the  anniversary  of  the  day  when  fifty  years  ago 
you  won  in  our  high  school  the  venia  legendi,  the  Theological 
Faculty  of  the  Frederick  William  University  would  present 
to  you,  most  honored  colleague,  their  heartiest  good  wishes 
and  prayers.  You  entered  upon  your  work  as  academical 
instructor  in  our  high  school  at  the  time  when  the  study  of 
church  history,  under  the  lead  of  Neander  and  Baur,  had 
tiiken  on  a  marked  impetus.  Erbkam,  Piper,  Kahnis  and 
Jacobi  Avere  among  your  immediate  predecessors ;  lieuter  fol- 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES.  423 

lowing  two  months  later ;  these,  with  yourself,  all  grateful 
pupils  of  Neander  and  filled  with  the  noble  spirit  that  ani- 
mated him,  were  one  in  their  determination  to  seek  the  wel- 
fare of  the  church  by  mastering  with  loving  zeal  the  dis- 
tinctive features  of  Christian  life  and  thought  in  order 
faithfully  to  impart  the  results  to  others. 

You  have  introduced  into  your  new  fatherland  in  Eng- 
lish__translations  an  array  of  valuable  and  weighty  works  of 
German  theology,  thus  naturalizing  there  that  science  and 
causing  it  to  be  appreciated.  This  however,  forms  but  a 
small  part  of  your  great  and  fruitful  work.  You  have  ad- 
vanced the  science  of  theology  by  works  both  in  German  and 
English,  particularly  by  your  great  works,  the  "  History  of 
the  Apostolic  Church,"  the  "  History  of  the  Christian  Church," 
Bibliotlieca  Symbolica  Ecclesiae  Universalis  ("  The  Creeds  of 
Christendom "),  together  with  numerous  treatises  on  subjects 
pertaining  to  church  history,  which  are  the  fruits  of  your 
own  independent  studies.  Your  Church  History  in  particu- 
lar has  taken  a  most  honorable  rank  among  the  church  his- 
tories of  the  day,  by  virtue  of  the  thoroughness  of  its  execu- 
tion and  the  clearness  of  its  style.  It  is  the  most  notable 
monument  of  universal  historical  learning  produced  by  the 
school  of  Neander. 

In  addition  to  this,  and  thereby  resembling  the  great 
mediator  between  the  Greek  and  the  Latin  Churches  in  the 
past,  you  have  shown  the  most  lively  interest  in  both  the 
original  text  of  the  New  Testament  and  its  translation  into 
English.  Your  "  Companion  of  the  Greek  Testament  and  the 
English  Version,"  has  become  a  most  useful  hand-book.  And 
as  president  of  the  American  Bible  Revision  Committee  in 
co-operation  with  the  English  committee,  you  have  played  a 
most  prominent  part  in  bringing  that  great  work  to  a  happy 
conclusion.  But,  unlike  Jerome,  your  aim  was  not  to  intro- 
duce into  one  country  the  theological  conflicts  of  another, 
nor  to  draw  party  lines  of  doctrine  as  strictly  as  possible, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  you  have  ever  made  it  your  task  to 
promote  reconciliation,  to  draw  together  the  various  parties 
in  the  Church,  and  everywhere   to  bring  about  "  the  speak- 


424  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

ing  of  the  truth  in  love."  If  the  signs  of  the  times  do  not 
deceive  us,  your  work  in  this  regard  also  has  been  crowned 
Avith  special  blessing.  The  various  evangelical  denomina- 
tions of  your  new  home  are  indeed  drawing  nearer  to  one 
another,  and  their  ecclesiastical  and  scholarly  emulation  no 
longer  minister  to  strife,  but  to  mutual  recognition  and  co- 
operation. 

The  Lord  Almighty  has  vouchsafed  to  you,  most  honored 
colleague,  to  pass  the  threshold  of  your  seventieth  year  Avith 
activity  and  strength  undiminished.  Within  the  past  few  years 
you  have  begun  two  great  undertakings,  the  founding  of  an 
American  Society  of  Church  History,  whose  president  you 
have  become  and  in  the  forefront  of  whose  work  you  stand, 
and  the  editing  of  an  English  translation  of  a  "  Nicene  and 
Post-Nicene  Library  of  the  Fathers." 

That  your   health    and    strength    may  long    abide    unim-' 
paired  in  order  that  you  may  bring  to  a  successful  issue   all 
you  have  undertaken,  is  our  most  heartfelt  Avish. 

The  Theological  Facflty  of  the  Royal 
Frederick  William  University. 
B.  Weiss,  Dmn. 

Since  these  sketches  were  written  and  in  print  two  other 
ministers,  once  directors  of  Union  Seminary,  have  passed 
away.  They  were  known  and  honored  throughout  the 
country  alike  for  their  high  personal  qualities,  and  for  the 
eminent  services  which  they  rendered,  each  in  his  own 
peculiar  sphere  as  preacher  or  teacher  and  author,  to  the 
cause  of  the  Divine  Master.  I  refer  to  the  Rev.  Charles 
Seymofr  Robinson,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  (1860-1869)  and  the 
Rev.  James  Ormsbee  Murray,  D.D.,  LL.D.  (18619-1882). 


part  JFiftb. 


A  SKETCH  OF 

THE  LIFE  AND  PUBLIC  SERVICES 

OP 

CHARLES  BUTLER,  LL.D. 


CHARLES  BUTLER,  LL.D.  427 


part  Jfiftb. 


A  SKETCH  OF  THE  LIFE  AND  PUBLIC  SERVICES 

OF  CHARLES  BUTLER,  LL.D. 

I. 

BIETH  AND  PARENTAGE. — EARLY  YEARS. — ADMITTED  TO  THE 
BAR. — SETTLED  AT  GENEVA,  N.  Y. — A  JOURNEY  TO  THE 
GREAT  WEST  AND  WHAT  CAME  OF  IT. — CHICAGO  IN  1833. 
— REV.  JEREMIAH  PORTER. — REMOVAL  TO  NEW  YORK 
CITY. — ENLARGEMENT  OF  HIS  CAREER  AS  MAN  OF  BUSI- 
NESS AND  CHRISTIAN  CITIZEN. — ENTERS  AT  ONCE  UPON 
.  HIS  LIFE-WORK  AS  ONE  OF  THE  FOUNDERS  OF  THE 
MERCER  STREET  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH,  THE  UNIVER- 
SITY OF  THE  CITY  OF  NEW  YORK,  AND  THE  UNION 
THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. — BECOMES,  LATER,  THE  AU- 
THORIZED AGENT  AND  REPRESENTATIVE  OF  NEW  YORK 
AND  LONDON  CAPITALISTS  IN  ADJUSTING  THE  FINANCIAL 
INTERESTS    IN   THE   STATES   OF   MICHIGAN    AND   INDIANA. 

Chakles  Butler  was  born  at  Kinderhook  Landing, 
now  Stuyvesant,  Columbia  County,  New  York,  Feb- 
ruary 15,  1802,  being  the  fifth  son  ©f  Medad  Butler 
and  Hannah  Tyler,  in  a  family  of  twelve  children. 
His  father,  well  known  as  a  merchant  and  as  a  judge 
of  the  county  of  Columbia,  was  a  descendant  of 
Jonathan  Butler,  an  Irish  gentleman,  who  settled  in 
Saybrook,  Connecticut,  in  1724,  and  who  married 
Temperance  Buckingham,  daughter  of  the  Bev.  Daniel 
Buckingham,  one  of  the  founders  of  Yale  College. 
A  younger  sister,  still  living,  recalls  characteristic 
scenes  and  incidents  of  Charles'  early  years.  Here  is 
one  of  them : 


428  ^^^    L'NIOX   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

The  Fourth  of  July,  1821,  was  a  memorable  day  for  our 
little  town.  Franklin  came  from  Albany  to  deliver  the 
oration.  Charles  and  Walter  Avere  very  active  in  making 
the  occasion  a  success.  We  were  just  through  with  the 
oration  and  refreshments  when  a  great  excitement  Mas  caused 
by  the  arrival  of  the  famous  steamboat  Richmond,  on  its 
way  to  Albany,  bringing  the  news  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte's 
death.  As  mother  always  had  a  great  horror  of  Bonaparte, 
Charles  congratulated  her  on  the  news  as  a  forerunner  of 
the  millenium  !  His  love  and  veneration  for  his  mother  was 
very  beautiful  and  touching,  even  to  his  ninety-sixth  year. 

Charles  received  his  education  in  the  district  school 
of  Kinderhook  Landing  and  in  the  academy  at  Green- 
ville, New  York.  On  leaving  school  he  entered  the 
office  of  Judge  Vanderpool  at  Kinderhook,  and,  later, 
went  to  Albany  to  j)nrsue  his  law  studies  in  the  office 
of  Martin  VanBuren,  then  Attorney-General  of  New 
York,  and  afterwards  President  of  the  United  States, 
in  whose  family  he  was  for  some  time  an  inmate.  His 
elder  brother,  Benjamin  Franklin,  had  already  been 
taken  in  by  Mr.  VanBuren  as  junior  partner.  The 
relations  between  the  two  brothers  seem  to  have  been 
already  very  close  and  beautiful.  Here  is  an  extract 
from  a  letter  of  Franklin  to  Charles,  while  the  latter 
was  in  Judge  Yanderpool's  office.  Charles  was  then 
seventeen  and  Franklin  twenty-three  years  old : 

I  need  not  say  anything  to  you  about  the  importance  of 
clear  and  vigorous  attention  to  office  duty  and  reading. 
Don't  make  too  many  acquaintances,  and  be  cautious  in  those 


CHARLES  BUTLER,   LL.D.  429 

you  do  make.  Above  all  things  never  be  asliamed  of  being 
more  virtuous  or  less  gay  than  the  rest  of  the  world.  En- 
deavor to  retain  as  much  as  possible  the  scrupulous  regard 
to  truth,  honesty  and  virtue  you  had  when  a  child,  and  try 
to  be  as  ignorant  of  everything  that  opposes  them  as  you 
then  were.  Let  conscience  do  her  office  fully  and  faithfully, 
and  be  careful  never  to  resist  her  dictates,  or  ever  to  reason 
with  her  supposed  absurdities.  The  moment  you  begin  to 
think  her  over-nice  that  moment  your  integrity  is  in  danger. 

Charles  Butler  was  admitted  to  the  bar  in  1824.  In 
1825  he  married  Eliza  A.  Ogden,  of  Walton,  Delaware 
County,  New  York.  Before  his  marriage  he  removed 
to  Geneva,  New  York,  and  there  formed  a  partnership 
with  Bo  wen  Whiting,  later  a  justice  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  State.  Shortly  after  settling  in  Geneva 
he  became  Assistant  District-Attorney  of  Genesee 
County,  and  as  such  took  part  in  the  noted  j^rosecution 
of  certain  persons  p)rominent  in  Masonic  circles,  which 
grew  out  of  the  mysterious  disappearance  of  Morgan. 
His  recollections,  sixty  years  later,  of  this  celebrated 
case,  as  also  of  the  man  and  the  incidents,  which  so 
stirred  political  and  popular  feeling  throughout  New 
York  and  all  over  the  country,  were  exceedingly  vivid 
and  interesting.  Mr.  Butler  practiced  law  in  Geneva 
for  ten  years,  acting  as  agent  and  attorney  in  western 
New  York  for  the  New  York  Life  Insurance  and 
Trust  Company — said  to  have  been  the  first  of  modern 
trust  companies — on  whose  behalf  he  loaned  the  farmers 
of  that  part  of  the  State  large  sums  of  money,  which 


430  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

enabled  them  to  improve  and  develoj^  their  j^roj^er- 
ties,  and  particularly  to  convert  the  leasehold  inter- 
ests, which  they  held  from  the  so-called  Holland 
patent  and  other  land  grant  companies,  into  estates 
in  fee  simple.  He  was  thus  largely  instrumental 
in  building  u]3  that  section  of  western  New  York. 

In  June,  1833,  Mr.  Butler  left  Geneva  with  his 
friend,  Mr.  Arthur  Bronson,  of  New  York  City,  to 
make  a  visit  to  Chicago,  known  then  chiefly  as  Fort 
Dearborn.  This  journey  was  a  turning-point  in 
his  life  and  his  life-work.  It  brought  him  face  to 
face  with  the  Great  West  and  opened  his  eyes  to 
the  immense  resources  and  possibilities  of  that  vast 
region.  In  letters  and  a  journal,  written  at  the 
time,  is  a  minute  account  of  his  journey.  A  few 
passages  from  this  record  will  show  with  what  an 
observing  eye  he  watched  the  signs  of  coming 
greatness,  which  before  his  death  was  to  transform 
the  rude  little  settlement  on  the  Chicago  River 
into  one  of  the  foremost  cities  of  the  world ; 

I  approached  Chicago  in  the  afternoon  of  a  beautiful  day, 
the  sun  setting  on  a  cloudless  sky.  On  my  left  lay  the 
prairie  bounded  only  by  the  distant  horizon  like  a  vast 
expanse  of  ocean ;  on  my  right  in  summer  stillness  lay  Lake 
Michigan.  I  had  never  seen  anything  in  nature  more  capti- 
vating. There  was  an  entire  absence  of  animal  life,  nothing 
visible  in  the  way  of  human  habitation  or  to  indicate  the 
presence  of  man  ;  and  yet  it  was  a  scene  full  of  life,  for 
there,  spread  out  before  me  in  every  direction,  as  far  as  the 


CHARLES  BUTLER,   LL.D.  431 

eye  could  reach,  were  the  germs  of  life  in  earth,  air  and 
water.  But  what  was  this  Chicago  to  which  I  had  come? 
A  small  settlement,  a  handful  of  people  all  told,  who  had 
come  together  mostly  in  the  last  year  or  two.  The  houses, 
with  one  or  two  exceptions,  were  of  the  cheapest  and  most 
primitive  character  for  human  habitation.  A  string  of  these 
buildings  had  been  erected  without  much  regard  to  lines  on 
the  south  side  of  Chicago  river.  On  the  west  side  near  the 
junction  a  tavern  had  been  improvised  for  the  entertainment 
of  travellers  and  there  we  found  lodgings. 

On  the  morning  after  our  arrival,  in  walking  out  I  met 
a  gentleman  of  whom  I  inquired  where  the  Rev.  Jeremiah 
Porter,  the  chaplain  of  Fort  Dearborn,  to  whom  I  had  a 
letter  of  introduction,  could  be  found.  Upon  exhibiting  my 
letter  he  said  he  was  the  person  and  that  he  was  then  on 
his  way  to  attend  the  funeral  of  a  child.  He  asked  me  if  I 
would  accompany  him,  and  I  did  so.  On  going  to  the  house, 
which  was  new  and  cheap,  we  found  the  father  and  mother ; 
the  dead  child  lay  in  a  rude  coffin.  There  was  no  one 
present  except  the  parents,  Mr.  John  "Wright,  Dr.  Kimball, 
Mr.  Porter  and  myself.  It  became  a  question  how  the  re- 
mains of  the  child  should  be  conveyed  to  the  cemetery, 
which  was  on  the  west  side  of  the  north  branch  of  the  river. 
While  we  were  attending  this  simple  service  we  were  inter- 
rupted by  the  noise  of  the  hammer  of  a  workman  outside, 
engaged  in  putting  up  a  shanty  for  some  new  comer.  Mr. 
Porter  went  out  and  secured  the  assistance  of  this  workman. 
We  acted  as  bearers  in  conveying  the  remains  of  the  child 
from  the  house  across  the  river  to  the  grave  and  assisted  in 
burying  it.* 

*The  Rev.  Jeremiah  Porter  was  a  great-grandson  of  the  renowned 
New  England  theologian,  Jonathan  Edwards.  He  pursued  his  college  course 
at  Williams,   while  the  missionary  enthusiasm  aroused  by  the   memorable 


432  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

At  this  time  there  were  perhaps  from  two  to  three  hun- 
dred people  in  Chicago,  mostly  strangers  to  each  other.  The 
tavern  was  filled  with  emigrants  and  travellers,  many  of 
whom  could  only  find  a  sleeping  place  on  the  floor,  which 
w^as  crowded  with  weary  men  at  night. 

Mr.  Butler  spent  some  time  in  studying  the  con- 
dition and  prospects  of  the  place.  As  a  result,  he  ]3ur- 
chased  a  large  amount  of  land  in  what  is  now  the  city 
of  Chicago,  and  held  a  small  portion  of  it  to  the  day 
of  his  death.  In  September,  1833,  the  U.  S.  govern- 
ment by  treaty  with  the  Indians  extinguished  the 
Indian  title  to  lands  in  the  Northwest  and  advertised  a 
great  land  sale  in  this  section  to  take  place  at  Chicago 
in  June,  1835.     This  sale  attracted  a  large  concourse 

scene  at  the  hay-stack  consecration  was  still  in  full  tide.  In  the  very  spirit  of 
Samuel  J.  Mills  and  his  ardent  associates,  young  Porter  "went  West"  and 
became  one  of  the  most  useful  home  missionaries  that  ever  labored  in  that 
field.  He  organized  the  Fii-st  Presbyterian  church  in  Chicago  in  1833.  "  On 
May  30th  of  that  year  I  preached  at  Fort  Dearborn,"  he  wrote,  "the  first 
sermon  ever  preached  within  one  hundred  miles  of  Chicago  by  any  otlierthan 
a  traveling  Methodist  preacher."  He  died  in  1893,  greatly  beloved  and 
revered  throughout  the  whole  Interior  as  a  patriarch  of  all  tlie  churches.  In 
a  journal,  kept  by  him  in  his  early  years  at  Chicago,  there  are  repeated  allusions 
to  Mr.  Butler.     Here  is  an  extract  from  this  journal  : 

August  5,  1833. 
Mr.  Butler,  a  lawyer  from  Geneva,  New  York,  made  remarks  in  the 
Sunday-school  and  at  our  evening  prayer-meeting.  Afterwards,  he  came  to 
my  room  with  three  of  the  brethren  of  my  church  and  a  young  man  just  come 
in  from  Dr.  Cox's  churcli  ;  and  we  had  a  pleasant  prayer-meeting.  Mr.  But- 
ler says  this  is  the  most  important  point  in  a  religious  and  commercial  view 
west  of  BuH'alo. 

A  few  months  later  he  records  the  arrival  of  a  fine  Sunday-.school  library 
of  two  hundred  volumes,  sent  to  him  from  New  York  by  Mr.  Butler  and  his 
friend,  Mr.  Bronson.  To  show  how  land  values  had  increased  in  Chicago,  he 
states  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Butler,  written  in  1856,  that  a  section  of  public  school 
land  sold,  not  long  after  Mr.  Butler's  visit  in  1833  for  $40,000,  was  sold  some 
years  afterward  for  812,000,000. 


CHARLES  BUTLER,   LL.D.  433 

of  people.  In  May  of  that  year  Mr.  Butler  induced 
his  brother-in-law,  William  B.  Ogden,  then  a  young 
man  and  just  elected  to  the  Legislature  of  New  York, 
to  go  to  Chicago  for  the  purpose  of  looking  after  and 
offering  for  sale  the  lands  in  which  he  had  invested. 
Mr.  Ogden  was  afterwards  known  throughout  the 
country  as  the  first  mayor  of  Chicago  and  one  of  its 
most  eminent  citizens.  Mr.  Butler  subsequently  be- 
came interested  in  several  great  railroad  enterprises 
having  their  inception  or  terminus  at'  Chicago  ;  among 
them  the  Michigan  Southern,  Chicago  and  Rock  Is- 
land, and  Chicago  and  Northwestern  Bail  roads. 

In  1834  Mr.  Butler  removed  to  New  York,  which 
became  his  home  until  his  death.  Just  at  that  time 
three  very  important  movements  were  about  to  begin, 
in  each  of  which  he  was  to  take  a  leading  part.  I  re- 
fer to  the  founding  of  the  Mercer  street  Presbyterian 
church,  the  University  of  the  City  of  New  York,  and 
the  Union  Theological  Seminary  Here,  too,  he  still 
represented  financial  interests  that  long  had  occupied 
much  of  his  time.  But  in  New  York  he  soon  became 
identified  with  far  more  important  interests,  which 
had  their  centre  in  London,  involved  many  millions 
of  dollars,  and  for  years  tasked  to  the  utmost  both 
his  physical  and  mental  forces.  This  chapter  of  his 
life  is  highly  interesting  for  the  extraordinary  ability 
and  wisdom,  of  which  he  showed  himself  master  in 
the  conduct  of  great  and  very  difficult  financial  opera- 
tions.    But  it  is  far  more  striking  on  account  of  the 


434  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

rare  moral  and  personal  qualities  it  brought  into  action. 
The  period  to  which  it  especially  relates  formed  one 
of  the  most  critical  in  the  commercial  history  and 
character  of  the  country.  For  the  first  time  the  hide- 
ous doctrine  of  repudiation  had  seized  control  of  several 
States  of  the  Union  and  threatened  to  subvert  the  very 
foundations  of  public  credit  and  justice.  In  meeting 
and  contending  with  this  peril  Mr.  Butler  stood  among 
the  foremost  men  of  the  nation.  His  record  relating 
to  it,  had  he  done  nothing  else  worthy  of  praise,  should 
keep  him  in  lasting  remembrance.  I  recall  no  other 
name  of  that  trying  period  that  was,  and  still  is, 
entitled  to  higher  honor  in  this  regard.  I  refer  par- 
ticularly to  Mr.  Butler's  service  in  effecting  an  adjust- 
ment of  the  public  debt  of  the  State  of  Michigan  in 
1843,  and  to  the  still  more  imjDortant  services,  rendered 
by  him  later,  in  restoring  the  credit  of  Indiana  and 
relieving  that  State  from  the  embarrassments  caused 
by  the  building  of  the  Wabash  and  Erie  canal  and 
other  internal  improvements.  In  both  cases  he  acted 
as  agent  of  the  domestic  and  foreign  bondholders  of 
these  States.  During  his  absence  in  Detroit  and 
Indianapolis  on  these  errands  of  professional  and 
public  duty  Mr.  Butler  carried  on  a  constant  corres- 
pondence with  his  wife,  in  which  he  comnumicated 
to  her  in  detail  the  nature  and  progress  of  the 
negotiations.  His  letters  to  her  cast  much  light 
uj^on  his  character  and  his  training  for  the  work  to 
which  he  was  later  called  in  the  service  of  the  Union 


CHARLES  BUTLER,    LL.D.  435 

Theological  Seminary ;  they  bear  directly  upon 
turning-points  in  the  moral,  as  well  as  financial, 
history  of  two  great  States  of  the  Union ;  and  they 
are  full  also  of  interesting  personal  incidents  or 
allusions ;  I  shall,  therefore,  offer  no  apology  for 
giving  here  somewhat  copious  abstracts  of  the  most 
important  of  them. 

II. 

THE    FIGHT    WITH    REPUDIATION    IN    MICHIGAN    IN    1843. 

I. 

Arrival  in  Detroit  and  entrance  upon  his  mission. — 
Prelimjinary  steps. — 3Iessa<je  to  the  Governor  and 
the  Legislature. — Difficulties  in  the  way  and  un- 
certainty of  the  issue. — Comfort  in  prayer  and 
thoughts  of  home. 

Detroit,  January  28,  1843. 

My  Dear  Wife  : — It  is  now  twenty  minutes  to  twelve, 
but  I  cannot  close  the  day  without  writing  to  you.  I  have 
been  at  Chancellor  Farnsworth's  all  the  evening  in  confer- 
ence with  him  over  our  business,  and  returned  only  a  few 
minutes  since,  and  found  your  letter  to  welcome  me.  I  could 
not  but  follow  up  the  reading  of  it  with  the  8th  of  Romans, 
our  chapter  in  course,  and  then  on  my  knees  acknowledge 
the  goodness  and  grace  of  our  Heavenly  Father  for  His  pre- 
serving care  and  for  all  His  mercy  towards  us. 

Yesterday  and  to-day  have  been  very,  very  busy  days. 
It  is  a  regular  lobbying  campaign.  The  authorities  from  the 
Governor  down  have  received  me   with    the  greatest  cordial- 


436  THE   UNION  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

ity.  I  arrived  here  in  the  very  nick  of  time,  neither  too 
early  nor  too  late,  and  they  all  say  it  will  do  good.  I  will 
not  be  too  sanguine,  for  there  are  many  difficulties  in  the 
way,  which  no  one  can  understand  or  appreciate,  who  is  not 
on  the  spot.  On  Monday  morning  I  am  to  meet  committees 
of  the  Legislature.  This  morning  I  had  a  long,  uninterrupted 
conference  with  the  Governor  and  went  over  the  whole 
ground.  Yesterday  I  conferred  with  no  less  than  twenty 
persons  on  the  subject.  Talking  is  my  special  business,  and 
of  that  I  shall  have  a  great  deal  to  do.  The  contents  of 
your  letter  interested  me  very  much.  The  death  of  Captain 
Stoddard  was  not  unexpected,  and  I  rejoice  to  learn  that  it 
was  peaceful  and  happy.  By  this  event  another  is  added  to 
the  list  of  widows,  and  other  orphans  are  thrown  upon  the 
sympathy  of  Christian  friends.  Fiire  religion  and  undefiled 
before  God  is  to  visit  the  widoio  and  the  fatherless  in  their 
affliction.  How  the  benevolence  of  the  Gospel  shames  us  for 
our  selfishness !  Oh,  that  we  could  break  the  fetters  that 
bind  us  to  earthly  interests  and  go  forth  in  the  love  of 
Christ,  doing  good  as  we  have  opportunity,  every  day  and 
every  hour  of  every  day  ! 

Sunday,  January  29th. 
I  remained  at  home  this  afternoon  as  well  to  rest  as  to 
write  to  you.  Sunday  is  a  day  of  home  feelings,  a  day  to 
think  of  those  dear  ones  that  cluster  around  its  hearths  and 
altars  more  than  at  any  other  time.  What  a  faculty  is  the 
memory ;  how  vividly  it  brings  up  every  expression  of  the 
face,  the  manners  and  the  very  tones  of  S'oice  of  those 
Ave  love.  And  then  imagination  comes  in  and  completes  the 
picture,  and  enables  us  to  see  them  arranged  around  the 
table  at  tea,  in  the  parlor  or  nursery,  in  the  church  or  on 
the  way  to  it.      I    know    that    at    this  moment  you  and  the 


CHARLES  BUTLER,  LL.D.  437 

children  are  occupied  in  thinking  and  talking  about  me. 
Your  account  of  our  dear  boy  delighted  me.  I  cannot  bear 
to  have  Ogden  any  other  than  one  of  the  bed  of  boys.  I 
look  forward  to  the  time  when  he  will  be  a  young  man  and 
when,  if  we  live,  our  hopes  and  happiness  will  be  bound  up 
in  him.  A  good  boy  is  certain  to  make  a  good  man,  and 
a  bad  boy  is  equally  certain  to  make  a  bad  man  and  to  bring 
disgrace  and  unhappiness  upon  his  parents.  Witness  poor 
S.  Let  us  pray  to  God  fervently  and  frequently  to  give  us 
the  wisdom  we  need  to  train  up  our  children  to  His  service 
and  glory;  and  let  us,  above  all,  often,  very  often,  pray  for 
them.  We  are  called  to  exercise  towards  them  the  utmost 
patience,  forbearance,  gentleness,  kindness  and  firmness  in 
their  management.  We  must  regard  the  weakness  and  in- 
firmity of  their  natures,  as  well  as  our  own  ;  while  we  reprove 
their  faults  and  errors,  whether  of  a  negative  or  positive 
character,  we  must  not  fail  to  encourage  and  cherish  all  their 
endeavors  to  do  right  and  to  please  us.  The  real  difficulty 
is  m  the  heart,  and  God  alone  by  His  grace  can  change 
that.  Ogden  is  getting  to  such  an  age  that  he  is  becoming 
a  companion  for  us.  This  will  give  us  more  influence  over 
him  and  we  must  exercise  it  in  the  best  possible  manner. 

Detroit,  Saturday  evening,  4th  February,  1843. 
I  was  rejoiced  this  afternoon  to  receive  your  and  Ogden's 
letter.  Ogden's  letter  was  particularly  gratifying.  I  read  it 
aloud  to  Mrs.  Governor  Barry  and  Mrs.  Taylor,  and  they 
both  said  it  was  a  good  letter.  To  hear  that  you  were  all 
so  well  and  happy  made  me  feel  very  happy ;  and  I  could 
not  refrain  from  expressing  my  gratitude  on  my  knees.  The 
week  has  been  one  of  great  labor,  day  and  night.  I  have 
not  made  a  single  call  till  this  evening,  or  been  out  except 
on  Thursday  evening.     Mrs.  Farusworth  gave  a  party  to  help 


438  ^^^    UAVO.V   THEOLOGICAL   SEMIXARY. 

our  business  on,  I  went  of  course.  This  afternoon  I  gave 
Mrs.  Barry  and  Mrs.  Taylor  a  sleighride  ;  and  as  I  liad  not 
luid  one  for  nine  years  I  was  quite  willing  to  get  the  relaxa- 
tion. We  had  a  delightful  drive  down  the  river,  eight  miles 
and  back,  in  quick  time. 

I  shall  send  you  next  week  my  message  to  the  Governor 
and  the  two  houses  of  Legislature,  and  you  will  then  see 
how  I  stand  and  what  ground  I.  have  taken.  It  has  excited 
a  great  deal  of  interest,  and  I  bid  fair  to  be  quite  a  lion,  or 
rather  a  stripling  bearding  the  lion  in  his  den.  It  is  queer 
business  all  around,  and  a  Legislature  here  is  a  queer  body, 
and  they  have  queer  notions  of  matters  and  things.  I  enter- 
tain strong  hopes  of  success,  but  cannot  possibly  predict 
what  the  result  will  be.  It  is  all  a  lottery.  I  find  many 
old  friends  among  the  members  of  the  Legislature.  I  have 
really  laid  myself  out  to  bring  about  something,  and  they 
give  me  credit  for  urging  sound  doctrine  and  insisting  on 
reasonable  terms.  Still,  the  idea  of  any  one  coming  here 
and  insisting  on  Michigan  fulfilling  her  obligations  is  mon- 
strous in  the  estimation  of  some  ;  it  involves  the  honor  and 
dignity  of  a  sovereign  State  !  My  communication  was  read 
in  the  Senate  with  profound  attention,  and  an  extra  munber 
of  copies  ordered  to  be  printed  unanimously.  In  the  after- 
noon, however,  they  reconsidered,  and  by  a  majority  of  one 
decided  not  to  print.  The  main  argument  M'as  that  they  did 
not  want  it  to  go  to  the  people  without  an  antidote.  It 
will,  however,  be  printed,  and  will,  I  think,  do  good.  The 
Legislature  is  a  very  impulsive  body,  and  no  reliance  can  be 
placed  on  a  large  majority.  I  shall  have  to  see  every  man, 
and  to  omit  one  may  lose  the  bill.  Mr.  Taylor  and  Mr. 
Farnsworth,  my  coadjutors,  keep  entirely  in  the  backgi-ouud 
and  are  not  known  at  all  in  tlie  premises.  I,  comiug  all 
the  way  from  New  York,  through  the  nuid,  on   ])nrj)os(,  can 


CHARLES  BUTLER,    LL.D.  439 

say  and  do  things  wliich  no  one  liere  Avould  dare  to  say  and 
do  without  being  charged  with  treason.  It  is  now  precisely 
twelve  o'clock  at  night  and  I  will  lay  aside  all  business 
cares  for  the  coming  Sabbath.  Before  commencing  this  letter 
I  had  read  the  fifteenth  chapter  of  Romans  in  course.  What 
a  beautiful  epistle  it  is  !  Oh,  for  the  spirit  of  Paul !  I  went 
to  prayer-meeting  last  night  just  to  kindle  up  a  spark  of 
love  in  this  "cold  heart  of  mine,"  and  we  had  a  pleasant 
meeting.  Ten  days  will  bring  me  to  another  era  in  my  life 
and  another  revolution  of  the  wheel.  How  true  it  is  that 
life  is  but  a  hand  breadth. 

II. 

A  bill  prepared  by  him  passes  the  Senate  IJ^  to  1. — The 
prospect  clouded  by  the  repudiators. — Bill  finally 
passes  the  House  and  is  sent  to  the  Governor. — 
What  it  is  and  will  do  for  Michigan. — Sabbath 
rest. 

Friday  Evening,  February  24th. 
I  have  but  a  moment  to  say  that  God  seems  to  be  pros- 
pering me  in  my  business  here.  The  Senate  by  a  vote  of 
14  to  1  have  passed  a  bill  which  /  had  prepared  in  the  very 
form  in  which  I  had  prepared  it;  and  it  will  pass  the  House 
next  week,  as  I  hope,  by  a  unanimous  vote.  It  is  wonder- 
ful. Patience,  hearty  good  will  and  hard  work,  night  and 
day,  have  brought  it  about.  .  .  .  My  prospects  pie 
writes  a  few  days  later]  are  not  so  bright  as  they  were  on 
Friday.  I  then  thought  the  trouble  was  over,  bnt  in  the 
House  it  has  just  begun,  I  fear.  Demagogues  and  repudia- 
tors there  are  who  resist  every  honest  measure,  but  the 
hearts  of  all  men  are  in  the  hand  of  God  and  He  turns 
them  which  way  He  will  like  rivers  of  water. 


440  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

Monday  Evening,  February  27th. 
I  find  that  there  is  an  opportunity  of  sending  to  New 
York  by  private  conveyance,  and  so  I  will  make  a  double 
letter.  It  is  now  eleven  o'clock  and  I  have  had  another 
hard  day's  work.  The  prospect  now  is  that  I  shall  carry 
my  business  through  triumphantly  and  settle  a  great  ques- 
tion, to  the  honor  and  prosperity  of  a  great  State,  and  secure 
a  great  object  to  the  bondholders.  And  I  am  confident  that 
I  say  but  the  simple  truth,  and  what  is  apparent,  that  it 
would  not  have  been  settled  if  I  had  not  come ;  and  that  no 
one  else  could  probably  have  effected  it  in  the  same  way. 
I  have  as  much  as  I  can  do  to  follow  it  up,  being  obliged 
to  go  and  see  every  man  and  talk  it  over  with  him  plainly 
and  fully.  You  could  have  seen  me  this  evening  in  a  room 
with  half  a  dozen  members  seated  around  a  table,  laying 
down  sound  principles  of  democracy  in  relation  to  the 
'payment  of  the  public  debt  and  the  maintenance  of  the  public 
credit;  telling  them  that  whereas  a  good  citizen  should  be 
ready  always  to  lay  down  his  life  in  defence  of  his  country 
against  an  invading  foe,  so  he  should  always  be  ready  to  give 
up  his  property  to  preserve  and  defend  the  honor  of  his 
country  and  pay  its  debts. 

Detroit,  March  7,  1843. 
In  the  morning  of  Monday  it  was  ascertained  that  the 
enemies  of  the  bill  had  been  so  active  during  Sunday  that 
they  had  a  fixed  majority.  I  and  my  friends  Went  to  work 
and  in  the  afternoon  when  the  bill  came  up,  there  was  a 
very  animated  debate  pro  and  con.  I  had  not  conceived  of 
such  violent  opposition  and  at  times  it  seemed  as  if  the  bill 
would  certainly  be  lost.  We  carried  one  question  only  by 
a  vote  of  25  to  24.  We  finally  carried  the  bill  by  a  vote 
of  28  to  20.     To-day  it  is  in  the  hands  of  the  Governor  for 


CHARLES  BUTLER,  LL.D.  441 

his  signature  and  is  safe.  But  I  have  scarcely  ever  in  my 
life  passed  through  a  more  exciting  scene.  The  question 
was  in  fact,  repudiation,  or  no  repudiation ;  and  the  debates 
were  very  exciting.  General  Cass  turned  out  in  the  eve- 
ning to  hear.  The  opponents  of  the  bill  appealed  to  passion 
rather  than  to  reason,  and  in  the  course  of  the  evening  the 
yeas  and  nays  wore  taken  seven  times.  Thus  has  ended  my 
mission  here  after  six  weeks  of  toil  and  anxiety,  and  in  the 
result  I  recognize  the  hand  and  blessing  of  God.  It  is  all 
His  work  and  not  mine.  It  has  settled  a  great  question  on 
just  and  honest  principles,  redeemed  the  credit  of  Michigan, 
and  done  justice  to  her  creditors.  The  law  grants  precisely 
what  I  asked  for,  and  was  prepared  by  me,  and  you  will  see 
what  that  is  by  looking  at  my  letter  to  the  Governor.  The 
only  change  is  in  funding  the  int-erest  up  to  July  1,  1845, 
instead  of  January  1,  1844.  The  time  I  regarded  as  of  second- 
ary importance.  The  great  question  was  whether  the  debt 
would  be  recognized  and  secured  by  taxation.  I  desire  to 
place  these  things  on  record  for  my  own  benefit,  if  spared  for 
many  years  ;  and  if  not,  then  for  the  benefit  of  those  who 
may  come  after  us.  I  desire  it  from  a  conviction  that 
Michigan,  if  this  law  is  maintained  from  this  day  forward, 
will  go  on  prosperously  as  a  people  and  that  this  act  will 
constitute  one  of  the  most  important  events  in  her  history. 
It  is  to  give  shape  and  character  to  her  future  Legislation : 
it  will  redeem  the  honor  and  credit  of  the  State.  It  will  be 
a  landmark  to  steer  by ;  a  sheet  anchor  to  hold  on  to ;  and 
a  star  to  guide,  and  by  it  the  policy  of  the  State  in  coming 
time  will  be  established.  Had  I  known,  before  coming  to 
Michigan,  what  I  now  know,  I  would  not  have  ventured  an 
opinion  in  favor  either  of  the  recognition  or  the  payment  of 
the  debt.  Ninety-nine  persons  out  of  a  hundred  did  not  feel 
tliat   there   was   any   obligation  resting   on  them  to  recognize, 


442  THE    LNIOX   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

or  pay,  any  of  the  bonds;  and  thongh  they  said  that  the 
State  wonld  acknowledge  and  pay  what  she  had  received,  still 
that  even  was  considered  a  matter  of  grace  rather  than  of 
legal  and  eqnitable  liability.  This  ground  was  quite  broadly 
taken  in  so  important  a  document  as  the  report  of  the  joint 
committee  of  the  two  houses — a  committee  composed  of  eight 
individuals  constituting  the  very  best  and  most  influential 
men  in  the  Legislature. 

I  shall  now  leave  Detroit  by  Friday  of  this  week.  I 
cannot  close  up  sooner.  Then  I  shall  be  at  Toledo  one  week 
to  finish  up  there ;  and  then  it  is  an  even  cliance  whether  I 
set  my  face  steadily  southwest  or  right  about  towards  New 
York.  I  am  tired  out  now,  and  can  hardly  look  my  south- 
western jaunt  in  the  face ;  still  my  duty  may  urge  me  on, 
and  I  cannot  well  resist  the  monitor  within.  I  thought  of, 
and  prayed  for,  you  and  our  dear  children  on  Sunday  a  great 
deal.  It  was  communion  Sunday  in  Dr.  Duffield's  church, 
and  he  was  very  interesting.  It  was  a  lovely  day  for 
March,  and  though  my  mind  was  harassed  and  distracted  by 
the  business  of  the  week,  and  my  bill  had  come  up  just  at 
the  close  of  Saturday,  yet  I  Avas  enabled  to  preserve  a  good 
degree  of  composure  and  to  enter,  I  trust,  somewhat  into  the 
spirit  of  the  day  and  its  ordinances.  What  a  blessed  day 
the  Sabbath  is  !  I  enjoyed  our  concert  at  the  twilight  and 
could  think  of  you  and  Ogden  and  Emily  and  our  domestics 
and  our  family  altar  and  all  its  blessings,  and  thank  my 
Heavenly  Father  for  the  intelligence  that  you  were,  just  one 
wxek  before,  in  life,  health  and  comfort.  May  He  keep  you 
thus,  and  sanctify  unto  each  of  us  all  the  trials,  cares  and 
temptations  of  life,  and  finally  bring  us  into  His  iieavenly 
rest,  with  all  whom  Ave  love,  to  the  praise  of  the  riches  of 
His  grace  in  Jesus  Christ  our  Redeemer.  Kiss  Ogden  and 
Emily  thrice  each  for  me. 


CHARLES  BUTLER,    LL.D.  443 

III. 

Sudden  pull-back  and  consternation. — A  veto  threat- 
ened.— How  the  friends  of  jnihlic  honesty  and  good 
faith  rallied  to  save  the  bill  amd  persuade  the 
Governor.  Captain  Pui'dy  and  other  helpers. — 
A  noble  object-lesson  in  the  art  of  political  manage- 
ment and  doing  the  right  thing  in  the  right  way. 
—  The  bill  signed. — Letter  from  the  Auditor 
General  of  Michigan  in  praise  of  Mr.  Butler. 

Toledo,  O.,  March  14,  1843. 
I  left  Detroit  on  the  eleventh,  and  arrived  here  the  same 
evening,  with  another  cokl  fastened  on  me.  I  have  been  ont 
to-day  but  a  few  minutes,  to  the  post-office  and  printing 
office,  both  near  by.  I  wrote  you  on  the  passage  of  the  bill 
througli  the  House,  after  a  very  stormy  debate,  by  a  vote 
of  28  to  20.  I  will  now  relate  what  followed  ;  and  this 
letter  I  wish  you  to  carefully  preserve,  as  it  contains  the 
record  of  important  events,  which  in  coming  times  I  may 
desire  to  refer  to.  It  is  the  only  full  history  which  I  shall 
give  in  writing ;  and  this  is  not  full  either,  for  it  would  take 
me  a  week  to  write  all  out. 

The  bill,  having  passed  the  House  on  Monday  evening, 
was  returned  with  a  slight  amendment  to  the  Senate,  where 
it  originated,  the  same  evening,  the  Senate  being  in  session. 
It  again  passed,  the  ayes  and  noes  being  called  for,  every 
member  but  one  voting  in  the  affirmative,  although  leading 
senators  had  made  speeches  against  it  on  the  ground  that  no 
tax  should  ever  be  levied  to  pay  the  debt ;  that  the  only  security 
of  the  bond  holders  was  a  lien  upon  the  income  of  the  rail- 
roads ;  and  if  that  proved  insufficient,  then  their  security 
failed  altogether ;  that  it  has    never   contemplated  to   tax  the 


444  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

people  to  pay  the  debt ;  and  the  pledge  of  the  faith  of  the 
State  did  not  involve  any  such  consequences.  They  took  the 
ground,  in  a  word,  of  open  repudiation.  The  bill  was  sent 
to  the  Governor  for  his  approval  on  Tuesday  at  noon.  I 
then  felt  that  the  crisis  had  passed,  and  that  the  bill  was 
safe.  It  never  entered  my  mind  that  the  Governor  could, 
or  would,  veto  it.  It  was  a  question  of  policy  to  be  settled 
by  the  Legislature  and  it  did  not  involve  any  constitutional 
principles.  On  Wednesday  morning  the  Governor  had  not 
returned  the  bill,  and  a  good  deal  of  solicitude  began  to  be 
expressed.  This  was  increased  by  the  declaration  of  Bush 
and  others  that  Governor  Barry  would  veto  the  bill.  Still 
its  friends  did  not  yield  to  any  serious  fear.  In  the  after- 
noon I  was  in  my  room,  about  half- past  two,  and  had  just 
finished  a  letter  to  my  brother  Franklin,  giving  an  account 
of  the  results  of  my  mission,  rather  a  crowing  letter,  too  (I 
shall  never  crow  again  till  I  get  out  of  the  woods  !)  when 
Mr.  Wells,  the  commissioner,  a  friend  of  the  Governor,  and 
known  to  be  intimate  with  him,  came  in  with  a  good  deal 
of  anxiety  depicted  in  his  face  and  said  that  he  had  called 
to  see  me  about  the  bill,  and  that  something  must  be  done 
right  away.  I  expressed  my  astonishment  and  inquired 
whether  the  Governor  had  any  hesitation  on  the  subject. 
He  replied  that  he  was  not  authorized  to  say  that  the  Gov- 
ernor would  not  sign  the  bill  with  the  tax  clause  in,  but 
unless  that  clause  was  stricken  out,  he  thought  the  bill 
would  be  in  danger.  He  then  urged  me. to  consent  to  this 
alteration.  If  the  tax  clause  was  not  stricken  out  it  would 
ruin  the  Governor  and  the  party,  and  I  ought  not  to  place 
them  in  such  a  position.  I  replied  that  this  was  the  only 
feature  of  the  bill  worth  saving ;  the  Governor  must  take 
the  responsibility,  and  I  had  rather  have  the  bill  vetoed  than 
signed  without   the   tax  clause.      Mr.  Wells   left  me,  saying 


CHARLES  BUTLER,   LL.D.  445 

that  if  I  changedf  my  mind  I  must  let  him  know  within 
half  an  hour,  as  time  was  passing.  After  he  had  gone  I 
could  not  but  muse  on  the  uncertainty  of  all  human  affairs. 
Here  was  I,  after  having  secured,  as  I  supposed,  beyond  any 
question  the  passage  of  a  bill,  which  would  reflect  honor  on 
the  people  and  do  justice  to  the  creditors  of  the  State,  rejoic- 
ing in  the  victory  and  reposing  on  my  laurels,  when  lo  !  a 
veto !  I  was  almost  driven  in  desperation  to  take  ground 
with  Clay  against  the  veto  'power  altogether.  A  little 
reflection,  however,  brought  me  to  my  senses  and  to  my 
knees.  I  had  forgotten  God  in  this  business,  and  taken  to 
myself  the  praise,  which  belonged  to  Him  and  to  Him  alone. 
Surely  every  man  is  vanity,  as  the  psalmist  says.  Such  a 
rebuke,  such  a  hreeik  down,  I  had  never  before  realized. 
But,  my  dear  wife,  when  I  arose  from  that  prayer  I  felt 
such  a  calmness,  such  contentment,  such  submission  and 
resignation  to  the  will  of  God  as  to  be  willing,  I  had  almost 
said  desiring,  that  He  would  cause  the  Governor  to  veto  the 
bill  and  thus  humble  my  pride,  self-confidence  and  conceit 
into  the  very  dust. 

I  thought,  however,  that  duty  to  my  employers  and  duty 
to  an  upright  cause  and  a  sincere  desire  to  promote  what  I 
certainly  conceived  to  be  for  the  true  interests,  moral,  polit- 
ical and  financial  of  Michigan,  required  of  me  to  use  all 
honest  means  to  prevent  so  great  a  disaster  and  injury  to 
these  interests  as  such  an  event  would  produce.  It  would 
be  a  death-blow  to  the  character  and  credit  of  the  State,  and 
fatal,  of  course,  to  the  hopes  of  the  bondholders.  It  would 
be  to  encourage  and  strengthen  the  open  repudiators  and 
stimulate  them  in  their  appeals  to  the  people  against  the 
recognition  and  payment  of  the  bonds ;  and  it  would  be  in 
the  very  face  of  Governor  Barry's  messages ;  while  to  him 
personally  it  would  be  utter  political  ruin,  and  to  the  Dem- 


446  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

ocratic  party  of  the  State  division  and  rui».  Above  all,  it 
would  encourage  the  people  in  their  unwillingness  to  pay,  and 
open  a  Avide  field  for  demagogues  and  hold  out  an  invitation 
to  them  to  come  and  occupy  it.  They  had  already  declared 
that  if  the  Governor  should  sign  the  bill,  they  would  take 
the  stump  against  him  next  summer  throughout  the  State. 
A  veto  would  give  such  men  great  power  and  influence  with 
the  people ;  and  the  standard  of  moral  feeling  being  very 
low  and  the  real  inability  of  the  people  to  pay  foiling  in 
with  it,  it  was  obvious  to  any  reflecting  mind  that  the  most 
important  interests,  individual  and  collective,  were  involved 
in  the  crisis  and  dependent  on  the  single  act  of  the  Gover- 
nor. I  never  estimated  the  moral  force  of  the  veto  power, 
for  good  or  evil,  as  I  did  then,  and  as  I  shall  ever  here- 
after, when  any  great  question  is  involved.  I  knew  that 
Governor  Barry  was  an  honest,  just  and  prudent  man ;  that 
he  would  act  cautiously ;  but  I  saw  in  the  fact  that  his  most 
confidential  friend  and  adviser  regarded  a  veto  inevitable, 
unless  I  consented  to  strike  out  the  tax-clause,  the  strongest 
evidence  that  such  was  the  meaning,  if  not  the  conclusion, 
of  his  mind. 

But  I  went  out  to  see  what  I  could  do.  I  first  called  on 
a  leading  Democrat,  resident  in  the  city,  and  asked  him  if  he 
knew  that  the  bill  w^as  in  danger.  He  replied  that  he  did. 
He  had  been  up  to  the  Legislature,  and  he  heard  there  that 
the  Governor  would  veto  the  bill.  He  had  come  down  to 
see  Dr.  Houghton  (the  Mayor  and  State  Geologist)  a  per- 
sonal and  political  friend  of  the  Governor,  also  to  see  Chan- 
cellor Farnsworth,  and  if  i)ossible,  prevent  a  measure,  wliich, 
in  his  opinion,  would  be  ruinous  to  the  credit  of  the  State, 
to  Governor  Barry  and  to  the  Democratic  party.  He  had 
been  unable  to  find  either  of  the  three  gentlemen.  He  said 
he  would  i»o  a<2;ain  immediately  to  the  House   and    see    what 


CHARLES  BUTLER,    LL.D.  447 

could  be  clone.  As  I  left  the  office  I  met  Chancellor  Farns- 
wortli  and  communicated  to  him  the  intelligence,  which 
affected  him  as  strongly  as  it  had  me.  A  few  minutes 
lat(!r  we  met  Dr.  Houghton,  who  was  also  alarmed,  hav- 
ing -heard  it  from  another  source.  We  all  started  for  the 
Capitol,  those  two  to  see  the  Governor,  and  I  to  see  what  I 
could  see,  and  to  do  what  I  could  do. 

On  getting  to  the  Capitol,  I  went  immediately  to  Captain 
Purdy.  Now  Captain  Purdy  is  a  man  about  fifty  years  of 
age,  a  sound,  intelligent,  upright  man ;  remarkable  for  his 
good  sense,  good  temper,  and  conciliating  manners,  and  withal 
a  pure  and  devoted  Christian ;  one  of  the  best  men  in  a 
Legislative  body  I  ever  knew.  He  had  from  the  beginning 
taken  a  very  deep  interest  in  the  bill,  not  only  because  it 
was  honest  and  just  towards  the  creditors,  but  because  it  was 
the  duty  of  the  State  and  would  reflect  honor  upon  the  peo- 
ple and  do  them  good.  He  has  exercised  more  influence  in 
the  Legislature  than  any  other  man  in  it,  and  to  him  Prov- 
idence directed  me.  I  told  him  what  I  had  heard  and  what 
I  feared.  He  expressed  surprise  that  the  Governor  should 
hesitate,  said  he  had  heard  such  a  rumor  but  supposed  it  had 
been  circulated  by  the  enemies  of  the  bill.  But  now,  he 
would  go  at  once  and  see  the  Governor,  as  his  friend,  and 
tell  him  what  his  fate  would  be  if  he  did  veto  it.  He 
started  off  for  the  Executive  chamber.  I  then  passed  round 
among  the  members  and  found  that  the  rumor  was  beginning 
to  excite  a  deep  anxiety  and  feeling.  I  traced  the  rumor  to 
the  Lieutenant  Governor  Richardson,  and  in  a  few  moments 
met  him  and  he  stated  to  me  that  to  pass  the  bill  with  the 
tax  clause  would  be  death  to  the  Governor  and  the  party. 
I  then  went  up  into  the  Senate  and  found  the  rumor  of  veto 
rife  there.  I  went  to  Judge  Bell,  the  chairman  of  the  joint 
committee,  who   said    if  the    Governor   did    veto   the    bill    it 


448  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

would  kill  him,  if  it  did  not  destroy  the  party  and  ruin  the 
credit  of  the  State. 

After  a  brief  conversation  he  said  he  would  go  in  and  see 
the  Governor  and  tell  him  what  he  thought  of  it.  I  then 
spoke  to  Mr.  Wakefield,  another  leading  member  of  the  Sen- 
ate, who  said  he  would  go  and  see  the  Governor  and  tell 
him,  too,  what  the  consequences  would  be  of  such  an  act. 
On  passing  through  the  Senate  I  spoke  consecutively  to  about 
every  senator  and  found  that  they  had  all  heard  the  rumor 
and,  with  a  single  exception,  spoke  of  it  as  a  most  extra- 
ordinary thing.  If  vetoed,  the  bill,  they  said,  would  still 
pass  the  Senate  by  a  unanimous  vote  save  one  ;  but  in  the 
House  the  result  would  be  doubtful.  Shortly  after  I  was 
sent  for  into  the  library  and  there  met  Mr.  Wells,  who, 
with  the  Secretary  of  State,  had  just  come  from  the  Gover- 
nor. He  again  urged  and  begged  of  me  to  consent  to  strike 
out  the  tax  clause,  and  thus  save  the  bill.  I  refused  utterly 
on  the  ground  that  the  Legislature  had  passed  it,  and  that 
it  would  be  improper  for  me  to  interfere  in  any  way.  And 
if  I  could  change  it  I  would  not,  as  it  was  the  only  feature 
in  the  bill  that  furnished  any  security  to  the  bond  holders. 
He  seemed  to  think  it  very  cruel  in  me  to  place  the  Gov- 
ernor and  the  party  in  such  a  situation,  and  was  firmly  per- 
suaded tliat  we  should  lose  the  next  election  on  this  ground, 
and  that  the  next  Legislature  would  repeal  the  law,  leaving 
the  bond  holders  worse  oif  than  ever. 

Mr.  Wells  left  me  to  return  to  the  Governor.  It  after- 
wards turned  out  that  the  Governor  had  called  his  cabinet 
around  him  and  was  then  discussing  the  question.  There 
were  four  besides  the  Governor ;  two,  the  Auditor  General 
and  the  State  Treasurer,  were  firm  and  decided  friends  of 
the  bill :  and  two,  the  Secretary  of  State  and  Mr.  Wells,  the 
Commissioner,  were  opposed ;  and  the   Governor   inclined   to 


CHARLES  BUTLER,  LL.D.  449 

go  with  the  latter.  In  the  course  of  the  afternoon  and  eve- 
ning the  Governor  had  a  series  of  calls  from  his  personal 
and  political  friends,  who  remonstrated  with  him  most  plainly 
against  so  suicidal  an  act,  and  I  had  reports  from  Hough- 
ton, Purdy,  Hall,  Wakefield  and  others,  of  the  results  of 
their  various  interviews.  As  time  was  pressing,  this  being 
the  afternoon  of  the  last  day  of  the  session,  the  gentlemen 
had  no  time  for  compliments.  It  was  plain  talk  all  round, 
and  I  was  amused  at  the  report  which  an  eye  witness  gave 
of  Judge  Bell's  mission.  When  the  Judge  entered,  the  Cab- 
inet were  in  session  deliberating  on  the  bill,  and  lie  addressed 
himself  directly  to  the  Governor,  "talking  with  him  like  a 
father."  As  the  Governor  is  probably  ten  years  older  than 
the  Judge,  it  struck   me   with   more   humor. 

After  tea  the  Cabinet  again  met  to  deliberate  further  and 
I  went  to  the  Capitol  again  to  see  how  things  stood.  I 
found  very  great  excitement  prevading  both  Houses  and  an 
increasing  confidence  that  the  bill  would  be  vetoed  ;  and  it 
was  said,  that  if  vetoed  it  would  be  passed  through  the 
House  even  by  a  constitutional  majority  of  two-thirds.  Per- 
haps the  wish  was  father  to  the  thought.  It  was  evident, 
however,  that  the  current  was  setting  with  overwhelming 
force  against  the  veto.  The  enemies  of  the  bill  had 
made  extraordinary  efforts  to  bring  an  influence  to  bear 
upon  the  Governor  through  his  trusted  friend,  Mr.  Eldridge, 
the  Secretary  of  State.  They  said  that  his  signing  it  would 
be  a  deathblow  to  his  administration,  and  to  the  ascendancy 
of  the  Democratic  party  in  the  State,  and  he  had,  no  doubt, 
been  brought  to  believe  this.  The  counteracting  influences, 
however,  in  support  of  an  honest  and  just  cause,  were  too 
powerful  to  be  resisted  and  at  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening 
the  Governor  signed  the  bill.  This  result  was  brought  to 
me  confidentially  in  the  Senate  chamber,  where  I  was  patiently 


450  ^'^^    UNION   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

awaiting  the  veto  message,  tlie  moment  it  occurred.  It  was 
soon  circulated  among  the  members  and  the  congregation  of 
by-standers  who  were  lookers-on  in  Vienna.  AVell  was  it 
for  Governor  Barry  and  for  the  honor  and  credit  of  the  State 
of  Michigau  that  unwise  counsels  did  not  prevail  with  him ; 
that  God  so  overruled  things  that  he  was  kept  from  falling 
into  a  snare  and  inflicting  an  irreparable  injury  on  his  own 
character  and  upon  tJie  character  and  good  name  of  the  State. 
And  thus  ended  this  chapter  and  this  day  of  the  8th  of 
March,  1843,  at  10  o'clock  p.  m.,  when  I  left  the  Capitol. 

Here  are  passages  from  a  letter  of  Hon.  C.  J. 
Haiiiinond,  Auditor  General  of  the  State,  addressed  to 
Mr.  George  Griswold,  one  of  the  most  distinguished 
and  highly  esteemed  citizens  of  New-  York  in  that  day  : 

I  avail  myself  of  the  opportunity  presented  by  the  return 
of  Charles  Butler,  Esq.,  to  say  what  simple  justice  to  him 
requires  you  should  know.  You  will  be  advised  by  him  of 
the  result  of  his  mission  more  perfectly  than  the  limits  of  a 
letter  will  permit  me  to  do.  Of  his  agency  in  producing 
this  result  I  cannot  say  too  much.  He  has  accomplished  all 
that  man  could  do  and  more  than  almost  any  other  gentle- 
man you  might  have  selected.  You  are  aware  that  when 
the  present  executive  took  the  gubernatorial  chair  repudiation 
was  ready  to  burst  forth,  and  if  they  had  been  led  in  that 
direction  a  large  majority  of  the  people  of  this  State  would 
have  followed.  In  his  first  message  the  Governor  gave  tone 
to  the  then  forming  public  sentiment,  which  led  to  the  legis- 
lation of  1842.  In  his  last  annual  communication  to  the 
Legislature  he  advanced  a  step  and  public  opinion  sustained 
him.  But  many  even  of  our  most  valuable  citizens  had  not 
dreamed  of  ((i.vation,  and  the  Executive  did  not  tliink  public 


CHARLES  BUTLER,   LL.D.  45I 

opinion  would  warrant  a  present  enactment  embodying  that 
principle.  Although  it  was  fast  approximating  to  that  high 
and  honest  stand,  still  it  seemed  a  task  beyond  the  powers 
of  any  man  to  lead  a  majority  of  the  representatives  of  the 
people  to  that  point,  at  this  time.  Mr.  Butler,  by  his  ad- 
dress, amenity  of  manners,  and  powerful  arguments,  has 
succeeded  and  procured  an  enactment  based  on  high  moral 
and  political  principles ;  one  that  reflects  great  credit  on 
him  and,  I  think  I  may  justly  say,  great  credit  on  the  State. 
.  .  .  Discretion  will  require  that  the  agency  of  Mr.  Butler 
iu  producing  this  result  should  not  be  trumpeted.  Our  peo- 
ple are  jealous  of  foreign  and  out-door  influence,  and  the 
people  should  have  all  the  credit  that  can  be  bestowed  upon 
them  consistently. 

The  readers  of  this  history,  which  turns  so  largely 
upon  the  veto  power  conceded  by  Union  Seminary  to 
the  General  Assembly  in  1870,  can  hardly  fail  to  have 
been  struck  by  the  following  passage  in  one  of 
Mr.  Butler's  letters  to  his  wife : 

/  never  estimated  the  moral  force  of  the  veto  power,  for 
good  or  evil,  as  I  did  then,  and  as  I  shall  ever  hereafter, 
when  any  great  question  is  involved. 

It  is  also  noteworthy  that  in  the  midst  of  this  severe, 
all-absorbing  struggle  for  public  honesty  in  Michigan 
Mr.  Butler  did  not  forget  Union  Theological  Seminary, 
then  carrying  on  a  struggle  scarcely  less  severe  with 
poverty  and  discouragement.  Dr.  Peters  was  finan- 
cial agent  of  the  institution. 

I  wish    you    to    pay    Dr.  Peters    the  balance   of  my  sub- 


452  THE    UNION    THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

scription  to  the  theological  seminary,  and  to  say  to  him  that 
if  I  live  and  prosper,  I  shall  pay  as  much  more  the  next 
year.  I  want  to  know  how  they  get  on  in  the  seminary, 
and  if  you  see  Dr.  Peters,  or  Professor  Robinson,  do  ask 
them  to  write  me  at  Cincinnati  and  let  me  know.  I  have 
not  heard  a  word  on  the  subject  since  I  left  New  York. 

In  the  same  letter  he  thus  alludes  to  his  New  York 
pastor,  Dr.  Thomas  H.  Skinner : 

I  am  afraid  Dr.  Skinner  will  think  me  a  faithless  elder. 
Tell  him  I  have  endeavored  to  do  my  duty  here,  and  that  I 
have  not  failed  to  remember  our  dear  church.  Oh,  what 
great  privileges  we  enjoy  in  New  York  !  All  other  ministers 
seem  so  tame  and  languid  as  compared  with  Dr.  Skinner  ! 
Our  chapter  I  foil  not  to  read  and  with  continued  interest 
every  night.     Kiss  Ogden  and  Emily  for  me. 


III. 


THE    FIGHT    WITH  REPUDIATION   IN  INDIANA  IN  1845-6. 

Let  us  pass  now  to  Indianapolis  and  watch  the  De- 
troit struggle  repeated  on  a  larger  scale.  The  political 
scene  and  the  incidents  change,  but  the  same  principles 
are  at  work.  In  Indiana,  as  in  Michigan,  it  was  still 
a  deadly  fight  between  public  faith  and  j^ublic  dis- 
honesty ;  and  the  signal  triumph  of  the  cause  of  honesty 
forms  one  of  the  noblest  chapters  in  the  history  of  that 
great  commonwealth.  In  1840  the  State  had  defaulted 
on  the  payment  of  interest  on  the  public  debt.  It  was 
an  ominous  year  in  the  moral  and  financial  annals  of 


CHARLES  BUTLER,   LL.D.  453 

the  country.  Early  in  1840  Gov.  McNutt  had  sent 
forth  his  notorious  proclamation,  announcing  to  the 
world  that  Mississij)pi  would  not  pay  the  bonds  issued 
under  her  great  seal  and  signed  by  himself,  in  her  name, 
on  account  of  the  Union  Bank.  Repudiation  was  in 
the  air  and  threatened  to  become  a  veritable  epidemic 
of  dishonesty  over  a  large  portion  of  the  land.  The 
creditors  of  Indiana  were  among  leading  capitalists 
and  financial  institutions  in  New  York  and  London. 
Mr.  Butler's  struggle,  as  authorized  agent  of  the 
domestic  and  foreign  bond-holders,  culminated  in  the 
winter  of  1845-6.  A  full  account  of  the  situation  and 
of  the  plan  proposed  for  its  relief  may  be  found  in  a 
letter  addressed  by  him  to  the  Legislature.  This  letter 
is  admirable  alike  for  strong  argument,  for  the  wise 
moderation  of  its  claims,  and  in  the  dignity  and  gen- 
tleness of  its  tone  from  beginning  to  end.* 

Mr.  Butler's  letters  to  his  wife,  written  at  Indianapo- 
lis, like  those  from  Detroit,  are  full  of  details  respect- 
ing the  character  and  progress  of  the  negotiations  he 
was  carrying  on,  as  agent  of  the  domestic  and  foreign 
bond-holders  of  the  State.  I  proceed  now  to  give 
copious  passages  and  abstracts  of  these  very  interesting 
letters.  Aside  from  the  valuable  information  stored 
away  in  them,  they  furnish  lessons  in  the  art  of  deal- 
ing with  difficult  questions  bearing  upon  public  morals 


*  Letter  of  Charles  Butler,  Esq.,  to  the  Le.£>islatnre  of  Indiana  and  other 
documents  in  relation  to  the  public  debt.  Indianapolis,  printed  hy  Morrison 
ASpann,  1845,  p.  107. 


454  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

and  appealing  to  the  public  conscience,  wliicli  are  good 

for  all  time. 

I. 

Mr.  Butler  arrives  in  Indianapolis  and  finds  the  situa- 
tion almost  hopeless. — The  question  of  public  honesty 
to  be  settled  now  or  never. — The  Governor'' s  posi- 
tion.—  Good  preaching  and  Sabbath  rest. — No  man 
dares  to  use  the  ivord  pay  or  tax. — Still  a  faithful 
remnant  stand  up  for  the  honest  cause. — A  letter  to 
the  Legislature  written. 

Indiaxapolis,  November  29,  1845. 
My  Dear  Wife  :— 

I  liave  been  incessantly  engaged,  night  and  day,  and 
hardly  find  time  to  eat  or  sleep.  The  prospects  are  altogether 
discouraging  and  almost  everybody  says  that  nothing  can  be 
done.  Politicians,  on  both  sides,  are  afraid  to  move.  It  is 
really  amazing  to  see  what  a  paralysis  hangs  u[)on  this 
people.  Everything  is  merged  in  the  most  trifling  local 
politics.  The  Governor  is  a  prominent  candidate  for  the 
United  States  Senate  and  dare  not  0})en  his  month  as  he 
should,  lest  it  might  affect  his  election  to  that  office.  His 
friends  are  in  the  same  predicament ;  and  so  with  all  the 
other  candidates  and  their  respective  friends.  My  mission  is 
a  hard  one  and  no  mistake.  Still,  it  is  not  fair  to  judge 
altogether  from  present  indications.  1  must  take  a  week  or 
more  to  find  out  how  the  land  lies.  It  is  hardly  possible 
but  there  will  be  found  some  ijood  men,  and  some  men  wlio 
will  take  rit;Iit  iiround.  I  juust  try  my  hand  and  see  what 
I  can  do.  Perhaps  the  very  discouraii'cments  whicli  meet  me 
at  the  outset  may  be  useful,   and    j)repare    the    way  for  uiti- 


CHARLES  BUTLER,   LL.D.  455 

mate  success.  It  is  certain  that  if  the  question  is  not  now 
settled  it  never  will  be  ;  the  people  will  go  into  repudiation. 
I  have  had  two  interviews  with  the  Governor,  one  at  my 
room  and  the  other  at  his  own  house,  and  they  have  been 
quite  satisfactory.  He  is  one  of  the  most  cautious  and  timid 
men  in  the  world  ;  at  the  same  time  he  is,  I  think,  entirely 
honest  and  would  be  glad  to  have  right  done.  He  told  me 
what  he  should  say  in  his  message,  and  if  he  adheres  to  this 
intention,  it  will  be  all  I  could  desire. 

Indianapolis,  December  7,  1845. 
The  last  week  has  been  one  of  great  excitement  and 
pressure  with  me  in  my  business,  and  I  am  glad  to  have  the 
Sabbath  come  with  its  sacred  rest.  This  morning  I  heard  a 
sound,  practical  discourse  in  Mr.  Gurley's  church,  and  this 
evening  another  like  it  from  Mr.  Beecher.  What  a  different 
world  this  would  be  if  all  its  inhabitants  were  influenced  by 
the  simple  princij)les  of  the  Gospel !  What  a  beautiful  world 
it  would  be,  and  how  sweet  would  be  our  existence  in  it  ! 
The  Sabbath  has  come  to  me  as  a  thing  to  be  coveted. 
My  spiritual  nature  was  famishing  and  wearied,  and  needed 
food  and  rest.  I  find  that  I  am  engaged  in  a  groat  under- 
taking, involved  in  the  most  complicated  and,  perhaps,  insup- 
erable difficulties,  I  am  fully  persuaded  that  it  is  only  by 
addressing  myself  to  the  conscience  of  the  people,  stirring 
that  up,  and  bringing  that  to  bear,  that  I  stand  the  slightest 
chance  of  success ;  and  this  cannot  be  done  in  a  day.  A 
revolution,  a  reformation,  is  required  to  be  wrought.  The 
whole  population  has  got  to  be,  in  a  sense,  made  over  again, 
before  justice  can  or  will  be  done  to  the  holders  of  the 
pledged  faith  of  the  State.  Who  is  sufficient  for  these 
things?  I  am  sure  I  am  not.  The  difficulty  in  the  way  is 
radical  ;  it  lies  at  the  very  heart  of  the  people.     Such  is  tlie 


456  ^^^    UN/ON   THEOLOGICAL   SEMLNARY. 

sentiment  produced  by  the  efforts  of  heartless,  unprincipled 
politicians,  that  it  has  become  a  question  whether  it  would 
be  honest  and  right  to  pay  the  debt !  No  man  dare  take  the 
responsibility  in  the  Legislature  of  advocating  payment.  The 
Governor,  even  though  he  went  very  far  for  him,  yet  dare 
not  use  the  word  "pay  or  tax.  I  consider  his  message  a  great 
triumph  and  as  preparing  the  way  for  my  mission ;  yet  he 
has  thrown  the  whole  responsibility  on  me.  I  am  preparing 
my  letter  but  it  requires  great  labor  and  reflection.  I  have 
to  weigh  every  word  and  get  it  exactly  right,  or  else  I  shall 
stir  up  such  a  hornet's  nest  about  my  ears  that  I  shall  be 
glad  "  to  cut  and  run  "  out  of  the  Hoosier  State  as  fast  as 
possible.  I  transmitted  by  mail  yesterday  four  sheets  of 
it,  the  first  part,  in  manuscript,  to  Mr.  King  to  be  for- 
warded to  Mr.  Palmer,  by  the  steamer  on  the  16th  instant, 
and  shall  finish  it  to-morrow.  I  mean  to  make  an  issue 
between  the  bond-holders  and  the  State  in  a  way  that  the 
people  shall  understand  it,  and  lay  the  foundation,  I  hope, 
for  future  success  if  I  fail  now.  I  find  myself  backed  up 
by  a  few  good  and  strong  men  of  both  parties,  and  a  great 
change  has  certainly  been  wrought  since  I  came.  The  little 
leaven  may  leaven  the  whole  lump.  I  have  reason,  certainly, 
to  be  encouraged  with  the  indications  around  me,  and  the 
revolution  I  speak  of  is  certainly  within  the  ])ower  of  Him 
who  holds  all  hearts  in  His  hand.  It  is  a  great  question, 
intimately  connected  with  religion  and  morals ;  and  that  con- 
nection is  what  I  rely  on.  Last  night  I  did  not  get  to  bed 
till  one  o'clock.  I  am  run  down  with  engagements  and 
scarcely  get  out  of  my  room  all  day. 

Deckmi'.kii  10th,  7  p.m. 
I  have  only  this  moment  finished  my  letter  to   the    Leg- 
islature.     To-morrow,  or   day  after,  I  expect   to    read    it    in 


CHARLES  BUTLER,   LL.D.  457 

'person  at  the  bar  of  the  House  of  Representatives.  I  do  not 
know  how  it  will  be  received.  It  will  kill  or  cure.  The 
letter  is  very  much  complimented  by  the  few  to  whom  I 
have  submitted  it,  among  whom  there  are  the  best  men  I 
can  find  here ;  they  think  it  will  save  the  debt  and  the  peo- 
ple. The  fact  is,  the  State  is  on  the  verge  of  repudiation, 
but  they  have  not  known  it. 

Having  eased  my  mind  of  my  message  to  the  people  of 
Indiana,  I  am  going  to  a  party  at  the  Governor's  this  eve- 
ning. My  task  seems  a  mountain  but  it  may  be  removed  in 
one  way.  The  hearts  of  men  are  not  in  their  own  hands, 
and  well  it  is,  they  are  not.  I  am  aided  by  Mr.  Dodge  of 
Terre  Haute,  who  is  at  my  elbow  constantly,  and  then  I 
have  a  young  man  to  aid  also  in  copying. 

II. 

Delivers  his  letter  to  the  Governor. — Invited  to  read  it 
to  the  Legislature. — Its  surjwising  effect. — A  letter 
to  his  son  Ogden. — A  restful  Sunday. — His  letter 
referred  to  a  Joint  Committee  of  Twenty-four. — His 
authority  to  act  for  hond-holders  questioned  by  the 
repudiators. — His  troubles  fairly  set  in. 

Indianapolis,  December  11,  8  p.  m. 
I  delivered  my  letter  this  forenoon  to  the  Governor,  who 
transmitted  it  by  special  message  to  the  two  Houses  this 
afternoon.  I  was  there,  and  the  Speaker,  by  the  unanimous 
consent  of  the  House,  invited  me  to  read  it  in  person,  which 
I  did.  The  lobby  was  pretty  full,  and  they  all  listened  with 
profound  attention.  When  I  finished — it  took  just  an  hour — • 
they  immediately  ordered  a  thousand  copies  to  be  printed  for 
the  use    of  the    House,  which    shows   their   estimate,   as   one 


458  THE    UNION  THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

hundred  is  the  usual  numlier.  It  seems  to  have  met  witli 
universal  approbation.  The  Rev.  Dr.  White,  president  of 
Wabash  College,  met  me  as  I  came  out,  took  me  by  the 
hand,  said  that  he  had  heard  the  whole  of  it,  and  that  it 
was  a  most  able  and  statesmanlike  document.  He  seemed 
perfectly  delighted.  The  Governor  was  present;  and  though 
he  had,  of  course,  read  it  through  before  sending  it  in,  yet 
sat  throughout  and  listened  with  the  deepest  attention.  He 
and  the  Speaker  expressed  great  satisfaction,  and  said  that 
the  temper  and  spirit  of  it  were  most  unexceptionable,  and 
compliments  are  pouring  in  on  every  side.  Indeed,  I  am 
myself  surprised  at  the  manner  in  which  it  has  been  received 
and  the  effect  produced. 

My  bark  is  now  fairly  launched,  and  though  I  have 
scarcely  a  hope  of  its  weathering  the  adverse  blasts  which  I 
hear  and  see  driving  all  around  me,  yet  I  feel  persuaded 
that  I  have  done  enough  to  save  the  question  in  Indiana  at 
another  session.  I  will  send  you  the  document  itself  to- 
morrow and  you  will  read  and  judge  for  yourself.  All  the 
compliments  which  I  have  embodied  in  this  letter  are  meant 
for  you,  my  better  half,  and  I  hope  they  will  not  make  you 
vain.  My  head  is  not  quite  turned,  but  it  aches  terribly 
from  excitement,  and  labor,  and  fatigue.  Kiss  the  dear 
children  for  me. 

Before  proceeding  further,  I  will  give  a  few  extracts 
from  this  Letter,  addressed  to  Governor  Whiteomh, 
and  through  him  to  the  Legislature  and  people  of 
Indiana.  Let  the  reader  judge  for  himself  whether  I 
have  praised  it  too  highly  : 

According  to  the  most  reliable  estimates,  the  p(Mi]>le  of 
Tudiaua    will    realize  an    advance    on    llie  productions  of  tlio 


CHARLES  BUTLER,  LL.D.  459 

State  for  the  year  1845,  over  the  value  of  the  same  products 
in  the  year  1844,  of  not  less  than  four  millions  of  dollars — 
a  result  as  gratifying  to  your  bond-holders  as  it  can  be  to 
any  resident  citizen  of  the  State  ;  and  this,  taken  in  connec- 
tion with  other  concurring  and  favorable  circumstances,  ren- 
ders the  present  a  most  auspicious  time  for  the  disposition 
of  this  subject. 

I  may  be  permitted  with  propriety  to  allude  not  only 
to  the  great  internal  prosperity  of  the  State,  over  which  you 
have  the  honor  to  preside,  for  encouragment ;  but  also  to  the 
prosperous  condition  of  all  the  States  in  the  Great  Valley, 
and  constituting  at  this  time  the  granary  whence  are  drawn, 
I  might  almost  say,  the  supplies  of  the  world,  and  with 
which  States  Indiana  is  so  interlocked,  as  to  make  their 
prosperity  hers ;  and  especially  would  I  direct  the  attention 
of  the  Legislature  to  the  brilliant  example  of  your  sister 
State  of  Ohio,  whose  citizens  have  borne  without  murmuring 
the  burdens  necessary  to  sustain  their  credit  throughout  a 
period  of  great  pressure  and  gloom,  and  where  a  tax  is 
collected  for  the  year  1845  of  seventy-five  cents  on  the  hun- 
dred dollars  for  the  specific  purpose  of  paying  the  interest 
on  her  public  debt.  Here  is  a  noble  example,  illustrating 
the  integrity  of  a  free  people,  who  regard  the  maintenance 
of  plighted  faith  as  the  true  foundation  of  State  character 
and  the  seal  of  their  prosperity.  Indiana,  with  a  soil  equally 
fertile  and  a  population  equally  industrious  and  enterprising, 
has  opened  to  her  a  career  as  brilliant.  She  has  only  to 
restore  her  credit — that  greatest  element  of  national  wealth — 
to  render  it  certain. 

I  would  refer  also  to  the  progress  which  other  States  have 
made  for  the  restoration  of  tlieir  credit,  to  Pennsylvain'a  and 
Maryland,  to  Michigan  and  Illinois,  in  each  of  which  steps 
have  been  taken  for  the  restoration  of  their   credit,  and    the 


460  T^HE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

satisfactory  relief  of  their  bond-holders ;  and  in  these  efforts 
we  see  the  recuperative  energies  of  the  American  character 
and  the  sense  of  justice  prevailing  over  every  obstacle.  It 
is  a  movement  which  enlists  the  sympathy  of  every  Ameri- 
can citizen,  wherever  his  residence  may  be,  and  which  should 
challenge  the  admiration  of  the  world. 

I  cannot  close  without  availing  myself  of  the  occasion  to 
present  a  few  of  the  considerations  which  belong  to  this  great 
subject,  involving,  as  it  surely  does,  the  honor  of  tlie  State, 
and  the  prosperity,  interests  and  welfare  of  its  eight  hundred 
thousand  population,  and  which,  it  would  seem,  should 
prompt  the  Legislature  to  take  immediate  steps,  to  the  ex- 
tent of  her  ability,  for  the  relief  of  her  foreign  bond-holders. 
It  will  be  remembered  that  they  have  held  their  bonds  for 
a  long  period,  without  receiving  any  payment  from  the  State, 
and  the  eifect  of  such  delay  is  to  render  their  property  com- 
paratively valueless  in  their  hands.  In  many  instances  parties 
have  held  on  without  submitting  to  the  enormous  sacrifice 
which  a  sale  would  involve,  hoping  for  speedy  relief  from 
the  State ;  and  in  such  cases,  if  they  can  only  be  re-assured 
by  the  payment  of  a  small  portion  of  the  accruing  interest, 
and  by  certain  provision  for  the  future,  it  would  save  them 
from  ruinous  sacrifices,  and  enable  them  to  preserve  their 
projierty.  Next  to  the  payment  in  full  of  all  arrears,  is  the 
fixing  the  time  when  it  will  be  paid  ;  in  other  words,  certainty 
is  the  thing  desired — it  is  the  uncertainty  in  which  the  whole 
subject  is  involved,  and  the  consequent  inability  of  needy 
holders  to  make  any  certain  calculations,  that  adds  to  their 
unhappiness — as  in  the  case  between  man  and  man.  An 
examination  would  show  that  the  bonds  of  Indiana,  like 
those  of  Pennsylvania  and  New  York,  are  to  be  found  exten- 
sively in  the  hands  of  trustees,  guardians,  retired  and  aged 
persons,    widows,  and    others    whose    object   was   investment, 


CHARLES  BUTLER,   LL.D.  461 

and  whose  reliance  for  support  is  on  income.  Such,  with 
scarcely  an  exception,  is  the  class  I  represent.  The  State 
cannot  be  constrained  to  make  payment,  in  any  manner,  at 
the  will  of  the  holders  of  her  bonds,  however  pressing  their 
necessities  may  be ;  they  are  left  to  depend  entirely  for  the 
fulfilment  of  obligations,  upon  her  own  sense  of  honor  and 
justice.  In  the  exercise  of  her  sovereignty,  she  is  the  sole 
judge  of  her  own  ability,  and  it  might  be  deemed  presump- 
tion in  any  one,  even  a  creditor,  to  question  her  integrity 
and  disinterestedness  in  deciding  on  the  question,  however 
it  might  disappoint  his  expectations,  and  however  variant  it 
might  be  from  his  own  estimate. 

The  highest  evidence  which  can  be  given  of  the  reliance 
of  those  whom  I  represent,  on  the  honor  and  faith  of  the 
State,  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  already  mentioned,  that 
they  have  continued  to  hold  the  bonds  from  the  period  of 
their  purchase,  prior  to  the  default  of  the  State,  down  to  the 
present  time.  It  is  true,  they  have  been  encouraged  from 
time  to  time  by  the  solemn  assurances  of  the  people  of  In- 
diana, speaking  through  their  Executive  and  Representatives, 
of  their  intention  to  do  justice  to  them  as  soon  as  they  should 
have  the  ability ;  and  especially  by  the  emphatic  language  of 
the  joint  resolution,  adopted  by  the  Legislature  of  1844-45, 
which  is — "  that  we  regard  the  slightest  breach  of  plighted 
faith,  public  or  private,  as  an  evidence  of  the  want  of  that 
moral  principle  upon  which  all  obligations  depend  :  that 
when  any  State  in  this  Union  shall  refuse  to  recognize  her 
great  seal,  as  the  sufficient  evidence  of  her  obligation,  she 
will  have  forfeited  her  station  in  the  sisterhood  of  States  and 
will  be  no  longer  worthy  of  their  confidence  and  respect" — 
and  while  they  ought  not  to  doubt  that  such  is  the  senti- 
ment of  the  ])eople  of  Indiana,  still,  they  are  painfully  con- 
cious  that  time  is  running  against  them,  that  the  interest  is  ac- 


462  THE    UNION    THEOLOGICAL    SEMINARY. 

cumulating,  and  with  the  increase  of  the  debt  tlie  difficulties 
in  the  way  of"  j)aynient  will  also  naturally  increase,  and  they 
are  impressed  with  the  serious  conviction  that  the  neglect, 
or  refusal  on  the  part  of  the  State,  to  provide  for  the  pay- 
ment of  its  just  debts,  for  an  unreasonable  length  of  time, 
does  involve  all  the  practical  consequences  of  repudiation  to 
the  holders  of  its  obligations  and  to  the  people  themselves, 
and  will  be  so  regarded  by  the  world  at  large ;  and  the 
danger  of  this  tacit  or  passive  repudiation  is  increased  with 
the  delay  ;  for  the  longer  it  is  suffered  to  remain,  the  further 
removed  it  is  from  the  time  when  the  obligation  was  incurred, 
and  when  the  sense  of  it  was  fresh ;  and  when  we  consider 
the  changing  character  of  the  population  of  all  the  new  States 
it  is  not  surprising  that  the  sense  of  obligation  should  grow 
weaker  and  weaker  with  the  lapse  of  time.  Nor  is  it  sur- 
prising, in  this  view  of  the  subject,  that  the  most  lively 
apprehension  should  be  indulged  by  persons  situated  like 
those  I  represent,  nor  that  they  should  be  importunate  with 
your  Excellency  and  the  Legislature,  to  save  them  from  such 
a  possible  fate.  And  in  the  communication  which  I  have 
the  honor  to  make,  if  I  have  expressed  myself  too  strongly 
on  any  point,  or  if  I  have  seemed  to  fail  in  any  particular 
in  the  respect  which  is  due  from  me,  either  to  your  Excel- 
lency or  the  Legislature,  or  the  people  of  Indiana,  I 
beg  once  for  all  most  earnestly  to  disclaim  any  such  inten- 
tion, and  that  you  will  attribute  it  to  my  anxiety  to 
represent  faithfully  the  rights  and  expectations  of  those 
who  have  sent  me  on  this  mission,  and  who  cannot  be 
presumed  from  the  relation  they  sustain  to  the  State,  to 
entertain  any  other  than  feelings  of  the  utmost  respect 
for  its  public  authorities,  and  a  sincere  desire  to  see  its 
credit  established  on  the  most  enduring  basis,  and  its 
])rosperity  thensby  secured. 


CHARLES  BUTLER,  LL.D.  403 

These  passages,  as  indeed  the  whole  letter,  remind 
me  vividly  of  the  speeches  made  by  my  renowned 
brother,  S.  S.  Prentiss,  a  few  years  earlier,  while  car- 
rying on  his  memorable  fight  with  Repudiation  in  the 
State  of  Mississippi.  The  disease  was  much  more 
virulent  and  frought  'with  consequences  vastly  more 
disastrous  there  than  in  Michigan  or  Indiana.  But 
the  remedy  urged  upon  the  people  of  Mississipj^i  with 
matchless  eloquence  and  moral  power,  was  precisely 
the  same  in  principle  as  that  depicted  in  Mr.  Butler's 
admirable  letter  to  Governor  Whitcomb.  What  an 
unspeakable  blessing  it  would  have  been  to  Mississippi 
had  she  applied  the  remedy  as  it  was  apj^lied  in  Michi- 
gan and  Indiana  !  This  was  what  her  ill-fated  credi- 
tors urged  in  season  and  out  of  season.  In  a  letter  to 
me,  dated  Rydal  Mount,  March  23,  1843,  Mr.  Words- 
worth, the  illustrious  poet,  wrote,  in  regard  to  bonds 
of  that  State  held  by  his  only  daughter  and  an  aged 
brother  and  sister  of  his  wife  : 

"  In  matters  like  this  time,  as  in  the  case  of  my 
relatives,  is  of  infinite  importance,  and  it  is  to  be  feared 
that  the  two  individuals  for  whose  comfort  payment  is 
of  the  most  consequence,  may  both  be  in  their  graves 
before  it  comes.  Let  but  taxes,  to  amount  however 
small,  once  he  imposed  exclusively  for  discharging  these 
obligations,  and  that  measure  would  be  hailed  as  the 
dawn  of  a  coming  day ;  but  until  that  is  effected,  the 
most  sanguine  must  be  subject  to  fits  of  despondency." 

Unhappily,  it  was  never  effected. 


464  THE    UNION    THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

TO    HIS   SON    OGDEN. 

Indianapolis,  December  12,  1845. 
Friday  evening,  7  o'clock. 
My  Dear  Son  : 

I  was  truly  gratified  to  receive  your  affectionate  letter 
and  read  it  with  deep  interest.  I  have  scarcely  a  moment 
to  write  to  you.  I  think  of  you  constantly  and  so  I  do  of 
dear  Emily  and  Anna.  I  am  delighted  that  you  are  all  so 
happy.  You  can  make  each  other  so  happy  if  you  only  try. 
Your  school  report  was  a  famous  one ;  such  a  character  is 
more  to  be  desired  than  gold.  I  am  very  busy.  My  letter 
to  the  Governor  will  be  printed  to-morrow.  I  was  amused 
at  a  remark  of  one  of  the  plain  country  members,  who  said 
to  Mr.  Bright  that  there  "was  first  a  little  sugar,  then  a 
little  soap,  then  sugar,  and  then  soap,  and  it  was  sugar  and 
soaj)  all  the  way  through."  Another  said  that  I  had  "  mo- 
lassoed  "  it  well.  You  will  think  from  this  it  was  a  strange 
document,  but  the  critics  were  real  Hoosiers  and  "  no  mis- 
take," as  they  say  here.  At  any  rate,  they  liked  it  well, — 
for  maple  sugar  and  soap  and  maple  molasses,  you  will  un- 
derstand, are  three  of  the  greatest  staples  iu  this  country. 
They  don't  make  much  use  of  the  soap,  but  they  do  of  the 
sugar  and  molasses,  so  I  infer  from  it  that  they  were  pleased. 
Take  good  care  of  dear  mother  and  Emmy  and  Anna.  I 
will  see  if  I  can  find  anything  curious  for  you  in  this  coun- 
try. I  go  out  this  evening  to  the  Governor's  party.  I  go 
as  a  matter  of  business,  to  meet  with  the  people  and  form 
acquaintances. 

Indianapolis,  December  19,  1845. 
My  Dear  Wife  : 

To-day  I  attended  a  communion  service  in  the  Rev.   Mr. 

Gurley's  church,  which  was   deeply  interesting.     Mr.  Gurley 

is  a  very  spiritual  man  and  a  man  of  uncommon    sweetness. 


CHARLES  BUTLER,   LL.D.  455 

mingled  with  great  manliness  and  boldness.  .  .  .  My 
nature  is  truly  social,  and  needs  constant  exercise  to  preserve 
it  from  the  withering  influence  of  corroding  care.  The 
weighty  business  which  seems  to  fall  to  my  share  is  too 
great  a  burden,  and  I  am  conscious  of  it.  Still,  it  might  be 
borne,  and  Avithout  injury,  if  only  I  could  keep  my  heart  in 
the  right  place ;  for  then  I  could  cast  it  off  on  One  who  is 
able  and  willing  to  bear  it.  I  was  never  engaged  in  any 
undertaking,  in  which  I  felt  such  utter  impotence  and  fee- 
bleness as  I  do  now.  God  only  knows  how  it  will  end.  I 
am  in  the  midst  of  it,  I  voluntarily  placed  myself  there,  and 
the  interests  of  hundreds  of  thousands  are  bound  up  in  the 
result,  I  have  unwittingly  become  conspicious  before  the 
eyes  of  the  people  of  this  State,  and  they  will  look  to  all  my 
movements  with  the  greatest  circumspection  and  solicitude. 
But  I  will  not  allow  my  thoughts  to  run  into  my  business ; 
the  devil  has  all  day  been  tempting  me  with  it,  and  I  have 
tried  to  resist  him.  He  had  great  advantage  over  me  in  the 
circumstances  which  occurred  yesterday  afternoon,  and  which 
left  my  business  in  a  way  calculated  to  make  me  think  more 
about  it  to-day.  Nor  is  it  possible  to  avoid  intrusion  alto- 
gether to-day,  in  such  a  place.  People  will  come  in  and 
ask  questions,  and  it  is  difficult  to  keep  myself  entirely 
out  of  the  way.  As  I  think  my  business  has  an  intimate 
theological  connection,  I  endeavor  to  turn  it  in  that  channel. 
Mr.  Gurley  will,  probably,  give  us  a  sermon  yet  on  the 
subject.  For  repudiation  and  Sabbath  breaking  ought  to 
go  together  as  national  sins. 

My  letter  has  been  referred  to  a  Joint  Committee  of 
Twenty-four,  to  confer  with  me  ou  the  whole  subject,  and  this 
committee  are  now  in  session,  and  adopting  their  preparatory 
organization.  In  so  large  a  committee  there  are,  of  course, 
friends  and  foes,  and  the  latter,  I  fear,  are  the  strongest,  not  in 


466  '^HE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

numbers,  but  in  power.  It  is  an  easy  thing  to  make  mischief 
and  they  are  now  trying,  as  I  understand,  to  embarrass  the 
question  by  objecting  to  my  authority  to  act  at  all,  which  is 
quite  ludicrous,  after  receiving  my  communication  and  order- 
ing 1,000  copies  to  be  printed.  This  is  the  beginning  of 
trouble  of  which  I  shall  have  enough,  before  I  get  through. 
But  I  mean,  if  my  life  is  spared,  to  represent  the  bond-holders 
faithfully  to  the  end.  The  people  have  now  got  the  matter 
presented  to  them  in  a  form  it  never  was  before,  and  they 
cannot  prevent  the  effect  of  it.  I  expect  to-morrow  to  go 
before  the  Sanhedrim  in  person,  and  the  discussions  are  to 
be  oral.  That  is,  I  am  to  be  permitted  to  make  my  propo- 
sitions and  accompany  them  with  oral  explanations,  which 
gives  me  the  chance  to  say  all  I  want  to  say,  and  to  lay 
all  the  reasons  before  them.  It  will  probably  be  public 
also ;  and  the  matter  is  so  novel  and  of  such  deep  public 
interest  that  everybody  is  looking  to  the  proceedings  of  the 
committee  with  great  curiosity  and  interest. 

III. 

His  authority  recognized  and  the  discussion  with  the 
Co7mnittee  of  Twenty-four  begins. — A  Sunday  even- 
ing ivith  two  st)'ong  friends  of  public  honesty,  one 
a  Cumberland,  the  other  a  New  School,  Presby- 
terian.— His  entire  reliance  is  in  the  moral  power 
of  the  question. — Bids  his  desponding  friends  to  be 
of  good  courage  and  go  ahead. — Popular  interest 
in  tJie  subject  tliroughout  Indiana. —  Converts  the 
wife  of  a  leading  anti-bond  Senator. 

Indianapolis,  December  18,  1845. 
My  Dear  Wipe  : 

Your,  letter  of  the  11th   inst.  was   received   last  evening, 
just  as  I  came  iu  from  my  first  meeting  witii  the  committee. 


CHARLES  BUTLER,   LL.D.  467 

The  question  of  authority  is  yet  unsettled.  They  had  a  very 
violent  debate  and  fight  over  it.  I  declined  entering  into 
any  conference  with  them  till  they  had  settled  that  question, 
laying  before  them  such  credentials  as  I  could,  and  then  I 
withdrew.  The  committee  decided  by  a  strong  vote  in  favor 
of  my  power  and  adjonrned  to  meet  to-morrow  evening,  when 
I  am  to  appear  and  enter  on  the  discussion.  This  morning 
the  repudiators  raised  the  same  question  in  the  Senate  and  an 
angry  debate  was  the  result.  They  finally  adopted  a  resolu- 
tion, by  consent  of  the  friends  of  public  credit,  calling  on 
the  Governor  for  information.  The  Governor  was  present 
during  the  discussion  and  will  send  in  the  message  to-mor- 
row. This  will,  I  presume,  settle  their  point;  but  then  they 
will  raise  others,  as  fast  as  possible,  in  the  hope,  by  reason 
of  the  shortness  of  the  session,  to  bluif  off  all  action. 

Indianapolis,  December  21,  1845. 
My  Dear  Wife: 

I  intended  to  devote  this  whole  evening  to  you  and  our 
dear  children,  but  two  gentlemen  came  in,  who  have  this 
moment  left  me.  One  of  them  is  a  Cumberland  Presbyterian, 
and  the  other  a  New  School  Presbyterian.  The  first  is  a 
plain  farmer  from  the  country,  but  a  most  lovely  Christian. 
Our  conversation  took  a  religious  turn  and  he  gave  me  a 
history  of  his  conversion  in  such  simple  and  affecting  lan- 
guage that,  in  connection  with  the  circumstances,  it  interested 
me  very  much.  What  fine  characters  we  meet  with  often 
under  the  roughest  exterior  and  the  plainest  manners,  and 
how  refining,  purifying  and  elevating  is  the  influence  of  the 
blessed  Gospel  on  the  man  !  What  a  different  being  it  makes 
of  him.  This  good  ma^i  has  come  up  on  purpose  to  help 
me  settle  the  public  debt.  He  says  that  his  people  sent  him 
on  that  business   and    he    pledged    himself  to    them    that   he 


468  ^"^^    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

would  not  leave  a  single  stone  unturned,  to  efFect  it.  He  is 
a  man  of  most  excellent  good  sense.  The  other  gentleman 
is  one  of  the  first  men  in  the  State  and  also  a  lovely  Chris- 
tian ;  he,  too,  is  here  on  that  business  exclusively,  and  with 
such  aids  I  feel  strong  in  the  Lord.  My  entire  reliance  is 
in  the  moral  power  of  the  question,  the  force  of  truth.  If 
God  sees  fit  to  make  it  go,  it  will  go.  If  not,  it  will  not. 
There  is  enough  to  discourage  the  stoutest  heart,  and  my 
friends  out  doors  have  been  most  desponding  and  unhappy, 
at  the  prospect.  Strange  to  say,  I  have  not  been,  but  have 
worked  on  as  though  it  were  certain  and  have  animated  them 
to  the  conflict,  and  said  to  them,  "  keep  cool,  be  of  good  cour- 
age and  go  ahead,  and  we  shall  come  out  right  in  the  end."  The 
opposition  is  boiling  over  and  furious ;  it  is  out  and  out  re- 
pudiation with  many,  and  politics  with  others  ;  but  I  have  a 
sure  conviction  that  if  I  can  only  keep  the  Legislature  to- 
gether long  enough,  I  shall  succeed.  I  feel  calm  and  prepared 
for  any  result.  I  had  the  first  conference  with  the  commit- 
tee on  Friday  evening,  and  addressed  them  two  hours  in 
connection  with  the  proposition  which  I  submitted.  I  suc- 
ceeded in  making  a  decided  impression ;  they  listened  with 
the  deepest  interest.  The  result  was  better  than  I  antici- 
pated. It  is  a  formidable  business,  I  assure  you,  to  address 
a  body  of  twenty-four  men  on  so  great  and  grave  a  subject, 
and  with  the  eyes  of  the  whole  State  fixed  on  us.  Our 
meetings  are  private.  I  am  allowed  a  reporter  and  clerk 
and  shall  have  every  word  reported.  We  meet  again  to-mor- 
row evening.  I  expect  to  occupy  about  three  evenings  this 
week,  and  about  three  hours  each  evening  in  order  to  go 
over  all  the  points,  and  submit  all  my  views.  I  have 
been  so  much  absorbed  in  this  business  that  I  have  not 
heard    the   war    rumbling    in    the    East.  *     I    cannot    believe 

*  Referring  to  the  trouble  with  Greiit  Britain  on  the  Oregon  question. 


CHARLES  BUTLER,   LL.D.  469 

that  war  will  take  place.  It  would  be  an  awful  calamity,  and 
may  God  in  his  mercy  avert  it  from  our  land  !  Oh,  what 
folly,  and  what  an  awful  responsibility  would  rest  some- 
where. Still,  I  regard  the  arrogance  of  Great  Britain  with 
distrust,  and  it  may  be  the  only  way  to  check  it.  She  is 
too  ambitious.  She  must  let  the  American  Continent  alone. 
It  is  the  proper  soil  for  free  institutions,  and  such  only  can, 
or  will,  be  tolerated. 

Indianapolis,   December  22d. 
Monday  evening. 
My  Dear  Wife  : 

I  closed  a  second  conference  with  the  Joint  Committee 
this  evening,  having  addressed  them  just  two  and  a  half 
hours.  The  impression  was  evidently  very  favorable.  The 
meeting  was  held  in  the  Senate  chamber  and  was  altogether 
interesting.  The  truth  is,  the  subject  is  a  very  great  one 
with  the  people  of  Indiana,  and  this  proceeding  has  given  to 
it  great  prominence.  All  eyes  are  now  directed  to  the  result 
of  the  conference  pending  between  the  State  and  its  public 
creditors,  the  latter  represented  by  me.  The  momentous 
question  of  the  public  debt  is  to  be  settled,  and  the  founda- 
tions laid  for  the  future  prosperity  and  greatness  of  the 
State.  The  theme  is  a  noble  one  and  the  occasion  extraor- 
dinary. Every  evening  thus  far  I  have  made  converts  in 
the  committee  to  my  views,  so  that  the  friends  of  public 
credit  say  they  now  consider  the  House  safe,  and  the  only 
difficulty  is  in  the  Senate.  I  do  not  know  how  this  is,  and 
can  hardly  credit  it.  In  the  committee  we  have  a  number 
of  out  and  out  repudiators,  violent  and  unreasonable  men,  and 
yet  they  have  listened  to  me  with  much  respect  and  atten- 
tion. One  only  has  abandoned  the  committee,  and  does  not 
pretend  to  come.  The  other  twenty-three  are  there  to  a  man, 
and  a  minute. 


470  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

Tuesday   Afternoon. 

We  meet  again  this  evening,  when  I  proceed  with  the 
argument.  To-morrow  evening  I  appropriate  especially  to 
the  consideration  of  the  bonds  which  it  is  proposed  to  repu- 
diate, amounting  to  some  $3,000,000  or  $4,000,000.  This 
brings  up  the  whole  sul)jcct  of  repudiation,  and  is  the  most 
important  point  involved  in  the  discussion.  It  is  profoundly 
interesting,  and  I  feel  oppressed  with  the  weight  and  burden 
of  it.  On  the  result  depends  the  question  whether  the  State 
will  or  will  not  repudiate.  The  committee  will  decide  that 
question,  probably.  If  they  decide  against  me,  I  shall  then 
protest  and  ask  to  be  heard  at  the  bar  of  the  House,  and  if 
the  House  decide  against  me,  I  shall  withdraw  the  proposals 
and  shake  the  dust  from  my  feet  and  go  home. 

The  enemy  will  rally  again.  My  committee  meet  again 
this  evening.  The  Governor  helped  me  this  afternoon,  by  a 
message  to  the  Senate  in  reply  to  a  resolution.  He  and  INIr. 
Bright  go  in  for  me  strong,  head  and  shoulders,  and  now  I 
have  a  strong  team,  in-doors  and  out.  My  room  is  run  down 
with  people  constantly,  and  to-day  I  have  done  nothing  but  see 
company,  and  make  one  call  on  two  ladies.  One  of  them  is 
the  wife  of  a  leading  Senator,  whom  I  have  not  seen  yet, 
but  who  is  dead  against  me.  His  wife  I  got  all  right,  in 
an  hour's  talk  devoted  exclusively  to  the  subject,  and  she 
goes  in  strong  for  my  plan.  I  made  the  call  this  morning, 
and  this  p.  m.  the  Senator  gave  a  vote  in  my  favor.  So, 
you  see  what  a  good  wife  can  do  in  an  important  affair. 
This  morning  he  voted  against  me.  You  must  know  that 
in  the  Senate  they  have  had  me  on  the  coals,  for  about 
a  week,  hot  enough.  The  Legislature  will  adjourn  by  the 
15th  of  January.  Wishing  you  all  a  happy  New  Year, 
and  commending  you  to  the  care  of  Him  whose  blessings 
Ave    have     enjoyed    for    the    year,     so    ])r(^fusely     bestowed 


CHARLES  BUTLER,  LL.D.  471 

upon  us,  let  us  enter  on  another  year  with  a  purpose  to 
serve  Him  more  faithfully,  and  thereby  secure  our  own 
happiness,  both  temporal  and  eternal.  Do  give  my  love  to 
all  my  friends,  and  the  compliments  of  tlie  season.  If  for 
a  fortnight  you  do  not  hear  much  from  mo,  do  not  be 
uneasy.  Next  week  we  enter  in  tlie  regular  battle,  and  up 
to  the  end   I   shall  have   my   hands   full. 

IV. 

Last  conference  with  the  Joint  Committee  of  Twenty- 
four. — He  talked  to  them  for  three  and  a  half  hours 
with  REPUDIATION  as  Ms  theme. —  This  question 
raised  in  regard  to  over  $3,000,000  of  the  State 
bonds. — The  mode  of  procedure. —  One  or  more 
converts  to  the  cause  of  honesty  every  evening. — 
The  repudiators  wish  to  stay  all  actions  ;  but  the 
movement  "  will  go  on  by  its  own  mighty  moral 
power.''"' — A  day  of  great  excitement :  he  submits 
a  final  proposition  and  his  hotel  is  on  fire. — The 
fi.re  a  blessing  in  disguise. — Electric  effect  of 
his  ultimatum. 

Indianapolis,  Christmas  Eve. 
After  10  o'clock. 

My  Dear  Wife  : 

I  have  at  this  moment  returned  from  the  fourth  and 
last  conference  of  the  Joint  Committee.  I  spoke  with  entire 
freedom  for  a  period  of  three  and  a  half  hours,  and  the 
committee  listened  with  deep  attention  and  interest  during 
the  whole  time.  The  theme  was  repudiation.  That  is  the 
question   raised    distinctly   in   regard    to   from   three    to   four 


472  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

millions  of  dollars  of  the  State  bonds.  I  never  satisfied 
myself  better  in  speaking  than  I  did  this  evening,  and  I 
was  gratified  to  find  that  my  remarks  seemed  to  be  received 
with  the  most  decided  favor.  The  meetings  are  held  in 
the  Senate  chamber,  and  this  evening  the  committee  allowed 
a  number  of  gentlemen  to  come  in  to  listen  to  the  discus- 
sion. The  mode  of  procedure  is  for  the  chairman  to  take 
the  president's  chair  in  the  Senate  and  call  the  committee 
to  order,  the  minutes  of  the  last  meeting  are  then  read  over, 
the  names  of  the  Joint  Committee  called,  and  if  all  appear, 
then  the  chairman  announces  to  me  the  organization  of  the 
committee,  and  their  readiness  to  hear  me  proceed  in  my 
remarks.  The  committee  occupy  seats  directly  in  front  of 
me  and  my  address  is  to  them.  Last  evening  I  spoke  about 
an  hour  and  a  quarter.  Thus  far,  every  evening  I  have 
made  one  or  more  converts  to  our  side,  and  this  evening  I 
was  informed  by  the  chairman  of  the  House  committee  that 
there  was  but  one  man  on  his  committee  now  wrong,  and 
that  one  was  Mr.  Carr,  who  has  been  an  out  and  out  repu- 
diator.  He  remarked,  when  I  got  through  this  evening, 
that  he  could  not  have  believed  that  he  ever  would  sit  so 
long  and  hear  a  speech,  every  word  of  which  rasped  his 
feelings.  Still,  he  did  it,  and  evidently  was  greatly  inter- 
ested. I  can  hardly  credit  it,  that  such  a  change  has  taken 
place  in  the  House  committee.  A  week  ago  it  seemed 
incredible,  nor  do  I  now  believe  it.  My  friends  were  com- 
pletely down  at  the  heel  and  thought  the  Speaker  had  given 
them  the  worst  committee  he  could  possibly  have  made  up. 
I  think  it  will  turn  out  a  good  committee  yet.  There  are 
seven  farmers  on  it,  and  five  lawyers  and  doctors.  The 
Senate  is  now  the  hardest  body ;  they  iiave  a  set  of  low 
l)lackguards  in  it,  who  have,  ever  since  I  came  here,  made 
a  dead  set  at  nie,  and  are  constantly  raising  (picstions.     Thev 


CHARLES  BUTLER,   LL.D.  473 

want  to  prevent  all  action,  some  from  one  cause  and  some 
from  another.  They  wish  to  stifle  the  movement,  but  it 
will  go  on  by  force  of  its  own  intrinsic,  mighty  moral  power, 
and  I  yet  have  hope.     It  is  indeed  a  missionary  enterprise. 

December  25,  1845,  quarter  past  11  p.  m. 
My  Dear  Wife  : 

This  has  been  no  holiday  to  me ;  the  Joint  Committee  met 
this  morning  at  nine,  and  again  this  afternoon  at  three,  and 
we  have  been  hard  at  work  all  day,  diplomatically  passing 
notes.  What  the  result  will  be  I  do  not  know.  Governor 
Whitcomb  and  Mr.  Lane,  the  chairman,  spent  some  time 
with  me  this  morning.  I  have  yet  another  proposition  to 
be  submitted  in  the  morning,  which  I  hope  will  be  accepted. 
It  is  a  desperate  business  all  around.  Nobody  can  tell  any- 
thing about  it,  or  form  any  correct  opinion,  who  is  not 
familiar  with  the  whole  ground.  I  do  not  know  that  any- 
thing satisfactory  can  be  done,  and  if  it  goes  on,  the  danger 
is  that  it  will  be  M^orse  than  it  now  is.  My  speech  last 
evening  did  good  and  made  friends,  and  stirred  up  enemies, 
and  the  two  parties  are  arranging  themselves  actively  for 
a  real  cat  fight.  They  get  so  angry  at  each  other  that  I 
have  to  keep  advising  them  to  keep  cool.  Yesterday  p.  M. 
they  had  a  most  angry  debate  in  the  Senate,  and  I  came 
in  for  a  full  share,  one  Senator  calling  me  a  Wall  Street 
broker,  etc. 

I  was  rejoiced  last  evening  to  get  your  letter,  with  one 
from  my  dear  Emily  enclosed.  I  was  glad  to  see  a  letter 
from  her;  it  made  me  laugh  out  loud,  I  was  so  hap})v.  She 
must  write  me  again,  and  you  must  give  her  and  dear  Ogden 
and  sweet  Anna  each  a  New  Year's  present  for  me.  I 
shall  have  nothing  but  hard  work,  and  hard  knocks,  and 
hard  times,  during  the  holiday   season.       It  makes  me  sick 


474  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

to  think  of  it,  but  I  have  embarked,  and  I  mean  to  folloAv 
it  up  to  the  hist  thoroughly.  I  have  had  a  chance  to  talk 
plain  to  the  committee  anyhow,  and  they  have  listened 
attentively.  These  Hoosiers  are  made  up  from  the  Caro- 
linas,  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  Virginia,  Ohio,  Maryland,  Penn- 
sylvania and  New  Jersey,  and  at  the  north  there  is  a  mixing 
of  New  York  and  New  England  people.  They  are  the 
strangest  mixture   I   have   ever   seen. 

Friday  Evening,  10  o'clock. 
I  could  not  find  time  to  finish  my  letter  and  send  it  off 
by  the  mail  this  evening,  which  I  regret,  as  I  fear  you  will 
not  get  it  by  New  Year's  day.  I  am  so  driven  night  and 
day  that  I  hardly  know  how  the  time  runs.  This  has  been 
a  day  of  great  excitement.  In  the  first  place,  the  Joint 
Committee  adjourned  over  to  this  evening  at  six,  to  receive 
a  final  proposition  from  me, — an  ultimatum.  At  the  same 
time  a  desperate  movement  was  made  in  the  Senate  to 
revoke  the  powers  of  the  committee.  The  repudiators,  it  was 
feared,  would  carry  the  point  this  afternoon,  and  my  friends 
were  speaking  against  time,  so  as  to  prevent  its  coming  to 
a  vote  to-day.  Just  then,  about  3  p.  m.,  while  the  war  was 
going  on  hot  in  the  Senate  chamber  and  I  was  busy  in  my 
room  at  the  hotel  preparing  my  ultimatum,  an  alarm  of  fire 
was  given  on  the  floor  on  which  my  room  is — third  story. 
At  the  other  end  of  the  hall  a  gentleman  had  gone  out, 
leaving  a  large  fire  and  it  had  caught  and  actually  burned 
through  the  floor,  and  dropped  down  into  the  room  below, 
which  led  to  its  detection  by  some  ladies  of  the  family,  who 
were  occupying  an  adjoining  room  below.  It  is  a  large 
house  and  has  one  hundred  and  fifty  people  in  it,  and  the 
alarm  went  like  fii'(>  itself,  from  room  to  room  through  the 
house,    in  the  street,  and   up  to  the  Capitol,  where  it  found 


CHARLES  BUTLER,   LL.D.  '         475 

Mr.  Lane,  chairman  of  the  Joint  Committee,  on  the  floor, 
making  a  beautiful  speech  on  my  business.  Of  course  the 
Senate  and  House  adjourned  in  a  panic,  for  half  of  them  stay 
at  the  Palmer  House.  I  had  my  papers,  books  and  clothes 
all  strewed  about,  and  was  alone.  As  the  prospect  was 
threatening, — indeed,  I  scarcely  doubted  that  the  house  would 
burn  up, — it  put  me  in  a  panic,  too,  and  I  out  w4th  my  trunk 
and  tumbled  in  my  papers  first,  and  then  such  clothes  as 
were  most  convenient,  all  in  a  heap  and  a  mess,  and  dragged 
my  trunk  down  stairs  ;  and  then  -got  out  the  balance  of 
my  clothes. 

The  fire  was  extinguished,  but  it  made  a  terrible  muss 
and  confusion  all  the  afternoon.  It  saved  my  friends,  how- 
ever, in  the  Senate,  and  this  evening  I  proceeded  to  meet 
the  committee  in  the  Senate  chamber,  and  to  deliver  my 
ultimatum  in  person.  You  can  have  no  conception  of  the 
interest  felt  on  the  subject ;  the  friends  of  the  canal  and 
the  friends  of  public  credit  all  hanging  in  the  deepest  sus- 
pense upon  the  issue.  The  committee  had  rejected  my  prop- 
osition yesterday  (which  I  enclose  that  you  may  know  how 
the  business  is  done)  and  now  they  were  apprehensive  that 
nothing  would  or  could  be  done,  and  a  feeling  of  despondency 
and  restless  gloom  was  creeping  over  them.  I  found  a  large 
number  of  spectators  present,  to  my  surprise,  expecting  to 
have  a  secret  session  with  them,  and  entertaining  doubts  as 
to  the  propriety  of  submitting  my  proposition  to  any  except 
the  committee  in  })rivate, — for  its  rejection  might  be  inju- 
rious, equally  to  the  public  credit  and  the  public  creditors. 
I  hesitated  about  going  on,  for  the  step  I  was  about  to  take 
involved  a  great  personal  responsibility.  The  result  I  had 
come  to,  had  not  been  without  inward  groans  and  conflicts, 
but  it  was  the  oidy  chance,  and  the  time  had  come  for  a 
bold   step,   that   would   settle   it   one   way   or   the  other — for 


476        '  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

weal  or  for  woe.  I  concluded  to  take  no  exception  to  the 
presence  of  others,  and  proceeded  in  introducing  my  propo- 
sition with  remarks  which  occupied  half  an  hour,  and  then 
read  and  explained  it.  The  effect  was  electrical ;  and  if 
I  can  judge,  it  really  routed  the  last  hold  of  the  enemy. 
One  man,  a  Senator  who  has  been  exceedingly  bitter  and 
personal  in  his  opposition,  so  much  so  that  my  friends  have 
christened  him  with  the  nick  name  of  "  Tallow  Face  " — said 
that  he  could  not  go  against  that. 

The  friends  of  public  credit  and  the  canal  are  now  in 
ecstacies.  I  think  the  blow  has  been  struck  that  will  sweep 
the  opposition  and  save  the  great  object,  to  wit,  the  restora- 
tion of  credit  and  payment  of  the  debt.  They  ordered  a 
large  number  of  copies  to  be  printed  and  adjourned.  Now, 
I  cannot  tell  whether  it  will  go  or  not,  but  it  looks  promising. 
I  have  made  great  concessions,  but  they  are  indispensible. 
If  it  were  to  go  over  to  another  session,  with  the  war  feel- 
ing springing  up  among  the  j^eople,  and  the  bond-holders 
being  foreigners,  and  with  the  other  difficulties  operating  on 
it,  the  debt  would  be  lost.  By  the  proposition  I  have  made, 
1  have  no  doubt  but  it  will  be  ultimately  paid  to  the  last 
farthing.  The  friends  of  the  canal  and  public  credit,  on  the 
committee,  had  not  one  of  them  anticipated  the  proposition 
I  submitted,  and  it  took  them  by  surprise.  It  met  their 
most  sanguine  expectations — indeed,  they  had  not  dreamed 
that  I  would  make  one  so  liberal  and  fair,  and  they  were 
overwhelmed,  whilst  the  enemy  were  scattered  in  every 
direction.  They  may  rally,  however,  again,  for  it  is  impossi- 
ble that  it  should  pass  in  any  shape  without  a  great  fight. 
But  I  think  I  have  placed  its  friends  on  the  vantage  ground. 
On  coming  from  the  committee,  I  found  among  my  mail  a 
letter  from  Mr.  Palmer,  under  date  of  London,  2d  Decem- 
ber.    "  Thinks  I    to    myself,  now,  what    if  the  letter  should 


CHARLES  BUTLER,   LL.D.  477 

contain  something  adverse  decidedly  to  the  very  movement 
which  I  have  just  made, — it  is  too  late  to  back  out."  On 
reading  the  letter,  however,  I  found  it  all  right,  and  judg- 
ing from  its  spirit  I  feel  confident  that  I  can  rely  on  being 
sustained  when  I  come  to  explain  to  him  my  reason.  This 
has  been  truly  a  busy  and  exciting  day  with  me. 

Saturday  Evening,  27th  December. 
I  add  a  few  words  at  the  close  of  the  day  and  week.  I 
can  scarcely  realize  that  we  are  so  near  the  end  of  the  year, 
and  that  this  will  reach  you  not  till  the  year  1846.  I  am 
so  driven  and  hurried  with  important  matters  that  I  cannot 
think.  To-day  the  friends  of  the  canal  and  the  public  credit 
have  been  in  a  perfect  glee, — as  though  the  question  were 
now  settled,  Indiana  redeemed  and  the  canal  finished.  They 
already  talk  of  illuminations,  bon-fires  and  cannon,  but  I 
tell  them  to  keep  cool,  the  battle  is  yet  to  be  fought. 

V. 

An  anxious  Sabbath  day. — The  time  short  a7id  the 
work  pressing. —  The  Lord  only  knows  when  or 
how  it  will  end. — The  strength  of  popular  feeling 
in  favor  of  the  bill. — An  anti-bond  paying  Senator 
rebuked  by  his  town  and  county. — A  sermon  on 
the  subject  by  Henry  Ward  Beecher. —  The  bill 
reported  to  both  branches  of  the  Legislature  by 
u7ianimous  consent  of  the  Committee  of  Twenty-four. 
— Friendly  attitude  of  the  little  country  papers. 

Indianapolis,  December  28,  1845. 
My  Dear  Wife  : 

At  the  close  of  the  last  Sabbath  in  the  year !  It  is  now 
nine  o'clock  and  I  am  alone  in  my  room.  I  have  been  out 
all  day  ;    this  morning   to   INIr.  Gurley's,  in  the  afternoon  to 


478  '^HE    UNION    THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

the  Sabbath  school,  and  this  evening  to  Mr.  Beeeher's. 
After  Sabbath  school  I  went  home  with  Mr.  Ray  and  took 
tea.  He  is  a  cashier  of  the  bank,  a  very  fine  man,  and  has  a 
fine  family.  The  Misses  Axtcll  live  with  him,  and  now 
their  brother  Charles  is  also  spending  a  little  time  with 
them.  All  very  nice  people,  and  forming  quite  a  Geneva 
circle,  and  as  they  are  all  associated  with  my  first  impres- 
sions of  Geneva,  it  was  pleasant  to  go  there  and  get  out  of 
the  noise  and  confusion  of  my  hotel,  which  is  a  perfect  bed- 
lam. I  have  been  under  such  high  pressure,  both  mental 
and  physical,  the  last  week,  that  I  felt  the  need  of  the  Sab- 
bath very  much.  I  have  just  been  interrupted  by  a  mem- 
ber, coming  to  talk  about  the  great  business.  I  fear  this  day 
has  been  devoted  to  it  altogether,  by  the  members  of  the 
Legislature.  It  excites  such  a  deep  and  thrilling  interest, 
they  can't  talk  or  think  of  anything  else.  And  the  time  is 
so  short  that  they  say  they  must  keep  at  it  on  Sunday.  I 
was  amused  last  Sunday  when  a  Senator  came  to  see  and 
talk  with  me  and  I  declined  talking  with  him  about  it,  and 
he  remarked  that  lie  thought  ''  that  it  was  like  lifting  the  ox 
out  of  the  gutter,"  and  that  it  was  a  work  of  necessity  and 
mercy ;  and  so,  in  truth,  it  is.  I  have  thought  and  felt  so 
myself,  and  this  rough  Hoosier  is  right. 

Governor  Whitcomb  came  in  this  morning  and  sj^ent  an 
hour  with  me  on  the  subject,  regarding  it  in  its  moral  aspect. 
He  goes  in,  heart  and  soul,  for  me,  and  so  does  Mr.  Bright. 
They  are  in  fine  spirits,  and  it  really  looks  as  if  Providence 
designed  that  it  should  be  settled.  Still,  I  can  hardly  realize 
it,  and  I  do  know  that  there  must  be  a  terrible  fight  over 
it,  for  the  oj>position  is  very  violent  and  active.  "  The  lot 
is  cast  into  the  lap,  and  the  whole  disposing  thereof  is  of 
the  Lord."  It  is  with  Him,  and  He  only  knows  how  and 
when  it  is  to  end.     I  do  not  want  to  be  puffed  up  about  it, 


CHARLES  BUTLER,    LL.D.  479 

for  if  I    am,  I  shall  very    likely    be    disappointed,  and  so  it 
is  best  to  keep  low,  lie  flat,  and  wait. 

Indianapolis,  January  1,  1846, 

Thursday,  10  A.  m. 
My  Dear  Wife  : 

I  had  just  taken  up  the  act  to  settle  the  public  debt  of 
Indiana,  and  to  finish  their  great  canal,  for  examination  and 
correction,  but  laid  it  aside,  to  devote  the  first  business 
moments  this  morning  to  you,  and  our  dear  children.  The 
day  here  is  anything  but  a  holiday.  The  Legislature  sits, 
the  Joint  Committe  sits,  as  on  any  other  day.  It  was  the 
intention  to  introduce  the  report  of  the  committee  and  the 
bill  accompanying  it,  into  the  House  to-day,  as  an  auspicious 
coincidence, — the  beginning  of  the  New  Year  and  of  a  New 
Era  in  the  history  of  the  State.  God  has  wonderfully 
blessed  me  and  prospered  my  labors.  Still,  I  do  not  count 
on  entire  success.  The  time  is  too  short  for  so  great  a  work. 
A  wonderful  change  is  coming  over  the  people  and  public 
sentiment  is  rolling  in  from  every  quarter  in  favor  of  the 
settlement,  on  the  plan  last  proposed  by  me,  and  the  dema- 
gogues are  getting  dreadfully  frightened.  My  letter,  I  find, 
meets  the  feelings  of  the  people.  They  like  it,  and  it  is 
interesting  to  read  the  comments  of  country  papers  on  it. 
Mr.  Chapman,  the  Senator  who  has  been  so  violent  and 
vindictive  against  me  and  the  object,  has  been  instructed, 
by  an  overwhelming  meeting  of  the  Democrats  in  his  town 
and  county,  to  support  the  bill,  and  they  have  rebuked  him 
terribly  for  his  course.  I  received  the  paper  yesterday  con- 
taining the  proceedings  and  sent  it  to  Mr.  Palmer  (England). 
The  editor  came  out  in  a  very  able  article  dead  against 
him.  But  I  can  hardly  realize  that  we  have  entered  on 
another  year.  I  hope  you  and  our  dear  children  are  well 
and    enjoying    the    social    pleasures  and  gratifications  of  this 


480  THE    UNION  THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

day.  It  is  a  good  custom,  that  of  our  city — a  noble  custom, 
and  worth  a  great  deal — I  feel  it  now  and  esteem  its  value. 
May  this  year  be  one  of  renewed  zeal  and  devotion  to  the 
greatest,  best  and  noblest  of  causes — the  service  of  our  Re- 
deemer, to  whom  we  are  indebted  for  all  our  blessings,  both 
temporal  and  spiritual.  The  past  year  has  been  one  of 
extraordinary  temporal  mercies — health  and  life  and  every 
needed  blessing — ourselves,  our  children,  and  relatives,  and 
friends — all — all  have  been  preserved  and  blessed.  What  a 
year  of  mercies  it  has  been. 

I  am  anxious  to  hear  from  father  and  mother.  How  glad 
I  am  that  Walter  is  there  to  cheer  and  comfort  them,  and 
Walter,  I  hope,  is  getting  on  with  his  business.  I  am 
anxious  he  should,  and  say  to  him  that  I  will  help  all  I 
can,  and  if  I  can  settle  the  debt  of  Indiana,  I  shall  hope  to 
be  able  to  help  him  pay  his,  and  help  myself,  too.  But  it 
is  a  great  business,  this  getting  out  of  debt ;  and  if  I  had 
not  been  very  deep  in  and  had  a  great  deal  of  hind-cast  in 
it  (as  the  Dutchman  said)  I  shouldn't  have  been  at  all 
fitted  for  the  work  I  am  engaged  in,  so  that  every  man  is 
prepared  for  his  calling  by  his  experience.  My  power  here, 
I  find,  is  in  my  per.sonal  experience,  Avhich  enables  me  to 
hit  the  true  chord  of  every  man's  heart  on  that  subject. 
Wish  all  my  friends  a  Happy  New  Year  for  me.  Kiss  our 
dear  children,  and  wishing  you  all  a  Hapjiy  New  Year  and 
commending  you  all  to  the  care  of  God,  I  am. 
Your  affectionate  iiusbaiid, 

Charles  Butler. 

P.S. — I  now  close  my  letter  and  go  to  the  bill  to  finish 
it.  The  bill  and  report  will  come  in  to-morrow,  2d  of  Jan- 
uary, and  then  comes  the  tug  of  war.  The  time,  I  fear,  is 
too  short  to  carry  it. 


CHARLES  BUTLER,   LL.D.  481 

Indianapolis,  Januaiy  4,  1846. 
I  retiirnecl  an  lioiir  since  from  the  evening  meeting,  and 
then  took  a  walk  for  exercise.  On  my  return  to  my  room, 
Governor  Whitcomb  came  in,  and  has  this  moment  left,  so 
that  I  shall  write  you  very  briefly  to-night.  Mr.  Beecher 
preached  an  admirable  sermon,  bearing  on  the  great  question 
pending  before  the  Legislature,  to  a  full  house  containing  a 
large  number  of  members.  I  was  up  till  twelve  last  night 
at  work  on  the  bill.  It  was  reported  yesterday  to  both 
branches  of  the  Legislature  by  the  unanimous  consent  of  the 
committee.  Still,  I  regard  its  final  success  as  involved  in 
doubt.  The  Legislature  has  passed  a  resolution  to  adjourn 
two  weeks  from  to-morrow,  and  there  does  not  seem  to 
me  to  be  time  enough  to  get  so  great  a  measure  through  the 
Legislature.  And  yet  there  may  be.  It  is  now  the  absorb- 
ing topic  with  all  parties.  My  only  reliance  is  Ln  the  para- 
mount moral  obligation  involved  in  the  question,  and  the 
discreet  manner  of  pressing  it.  If  the  moral  feeling  be  only 
rightly  stimulated,  the  pecuniary  relief  will  soon  and  cheer- 
fully follow.  It  is  not  the  mere  question  of  dollars  and 
cents,  nor  have  I  ever  so  regarded  it.  If  I  had,  I  should 
have  failed,  utterly,  in  awakening  any  interest.  My  labors 
have  been  very  great  and  my  anxieties,  corresponding  to  the 
magnitude  of  the  subject  which  I  have  had  to  grapple  with. 
Thus  far.  Providence  seems  to  have  wonderfully  favored  me, 
and  the  people  here  cannot  comprehend  how  it  is  that  such 
a  commotion  and  change  have  been  brought  about.  They 
at  first  seemed  to  feel  that  it  was  useless  to  talk  about  it ; 
now  they  regard  it  as  a  most  urgent  subject  and  one  that 
may  be  disposed  of  notwithstanding  the  shortness  of  the 
session.  The  intelligence  from  the  country  all  around  is  very 
favorable,  as  much  so  as  I  could  possibly  expect.  My  letter 
has  been  extensively  published    by  the    little   country  papers 


482  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

with  very  ap})robatory  remarks.     I  luive    not   seen   one    dis- 
senting or  complaining  criticism  on  it. 

This  is  the  first  Sabbath  in  the  year,  bnt  I  can  liardly 
realize  it.  I  have  had  no  holiday  here  and  nothing  to  im- 
press on  me  those  reflections  which  the  season  ought  to 
inspire.  On  the  contrary,  I  have  been  so  driven  as  not  to 
find  time  to  think  at  all.  I  feel  that  I  have  sustained  great 
loss  in  this  respect,  and  the  absence  from  home  and  its  dear 
ones  at  this  time,  is  an  occasion  of  real  grief  when  I  do  think 
at  all,  for  which  money  cannot  compensate.  The  conscious- 
ness of  doing  good  may.  And  I  trust  that  the  latter  feeling 
has  been  predominant  with  me  since  I  got  fairly  embarked 
in  it.  Looking  around  and  seeing  the  great  number  of  per- 
sons interested,  and  the  intense  solicitude  for  the  success  of 
my  mission  and  their  warm  hearted  encouragment,  has  changed 
the  whole  motive  power  in  my  bosom.  I  feel  that  I  am 
working  to  accomplish  a  great  moral  object,  dear  to  the 
hearts  and  hopes  of  hundred  of  thousands,  and  affecting  a 
great  State  and  its  prosjjerity  for  all  coming  time.  The  object 
seems  to  be  a  great  and  good  one,  and  my  heart  is  in  it, 
and  God  seems  to  regard  it  with  favor,  and  why  should  He 
not  ?  Is  it  not  the  cause  of  the  widow,  and  the  fatherless 
and  the  needy,  thousands  of  them?  I  will  send  you  the 
memorial  of  the  savings  bank,  which  is  one  of  the  most  beau- 
tiful things  of  the  kind  I  have  ever  read.  It  was  drawn  up 
by  Mr,  Daniel  Lord  at  my  suggestion  and  transmitted  to 
the   Governor. 

VI. 

The  extraordinary  character  and  pressure  of  his  labors, 
especially  "  to  keep  my  temper,  the  hardest  work  of 
ally — Reno7nination  of  Governor  Whitcomh. — 
"7%e  ivar  rages  hotter  and  hotter. ^^ — A  Dcmocndia 


CHARLES  BUTLER,    LL.D.  483 

caucus  called  by  the  Governor. — In  the  House 
only  forty-five  certojin ;  must  have  fifty. — The 
battle  0)1. — He  is  charged  with  selling  out  tlie 
people  of  Indiana,  land  and  all,  to  the  British  bond- 
holders.—  The  bill  passed  through  the  House  by  a 
vote  of  61  to  33,  but  will  be  hilled  he  thinks,  in  the 
Senate. — Amended  at  the  last  moment ;  it  is  ordered 
in  the  Senate  to  a  thiixl,  by  a  vote  of  31  to  18. — 
The   Governor  taken  very  ill. 

Indianapolis,  January  9,  1846. 
Friday  evening,  1 1 :  30. 
My  Dear  Wife  : 

I  am  almost  fagged  out  with  the  excitement  and  labor  of 
the  week,  and  cannot  realize  that  it  is  Friday  evening.  I 
console  myself  with  the  reflection  that  in  a  few  days  more 
my  work  will  be  at  an  end,  as  the  Legislature  will  have 
closed  its  labors.  A  week  from  Monday  next  they  adjourn. 
My  bill  will  probably  come  up  to-morrow  (Saturday).  It 
has  been  in  the  hands  of  a  select  committee  for  amendment, 
and  I  have  just  closed  my  labors  with  them  and  agreed  to 
the  amendments.  I  cannot  give  you  any  idea  of  my  labors 
here.  They  are  greater  than  anything  I  ever  before  under- 
took and  more  various.  I  have  to  talk  with  and  see  the 
members,  have  to  take  care  of  the  printers,  superintend  the 
press,  for  I  am  printing  a  book  on  my  own  hook,  attend  on 
committees,  keep  in  with  the  Whigs  and  Democrats,  counsel 
and  advise  both  parties,  and  all  parties,  and  be  all  things,  to 
all  men.  Above  all,  I  have  to  keep  my  temper,  which  is  the 
hardest  work  of  all.  My  friends  give  me  a  great  deal  of 
trouble  about  the  bill,  some  of  them ;  they  quarrel  about  the 
details  and  kick  out  of  the  traces.  I  have  had  at  least  a 
dozen  serious  flare  ups,  among  its  friends,  on  one  point  or 
another,  then  I  had  to  go  to  each  one  and  reason   with   him 


484  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

or  get  them  all  together,  and  make  a  speech  to  them.  Some- 
times one  thing,  and  sometimes  another.  Yesterday  the 
Democrats  held  their  convention,  and  to-day  the  AVhigs. 

Well,  I  have  had  to  manage  with  the  leaders  of  both  to 
get  them  to  go  right  on  the  State  debt,  and  last  night  I  gave 
up  almost  in  despair  at  the  result  of  the  Democratic  conven- 
tion. They  nominated  Whitcomb  again  unanimously  and  by 
acclamation,  but  quarelled  about  the  resolutions  and  address 
on  the  State  debt.  However,  it  passed  off  finally  pretty  well, 
and  this  morning  I  waked  up  feeling  that,  on  the  whole,  it 
had  done  good.  To-day  the  Whigs  held  their  convention 
and  nominated,  and  took  decided  ground  on  the  State  debt, 
by  way  of  gaining  on  the  Democrats,  and  to-night  Whigs 
and  Democrats  feel  pretty  strong  on  the  subject  and  things 
look  better.  Both  parties  are  pledged  to  the  proposition,  and 
my  hope  is  that  now  the  Legislature  will  act.  Still,  the  time 
is  short  and  they  are  afraid,  and  I  think  the  only  form  in 
which  it  can  be  carried  will  be  to  agree  that  the  act  itself 
shall  be  submitted  to  the  people  at  the  next  election,  to  vote 
on,  law  or  no  law.  It  is  now  precisely  twelve  and  I  go  to 
bed.  These  conventions  have  brought  into  the  city  a  vast 
number  of  country  people  and  a  great  number  are  in  the 
hotel  I  am  staying  at,  and  have  rendered  it  dreadfully  un- 
comfortable. 

Saturday  evening,  January  10th. 

My  bill  is  set  down  for  Monday  certain,  when  the  dis- 
cussion comes  on.  The  war  rages  hotter  and  hotter,  one  day 
up,  the  other  down.  I  am  })re8sed  to  death  with  engage- 
ments and  only  wonder  that  I  can  endure  so  much.  The  pros- 
pect seems  to  be  more  favorable,  but  I  regard  the  result  as 
altogether  uncertain.  Indeed,  I  have  very  little  confidence 
that  the  bill  will  j)ass,  the  time  is  so  short  and  the  dilfi(ud- 
ties    so    iireat.      One    week    from    Monday    the     Lei>is]ature 


CHARLES  BUTLER,   LL.D.  485 

adjourns.  The  weather  is  very  fine  indeed.  Tlie  winter  has 
seemed  no  winter,  it  has  been  so  moderate  for  a  long  time. 
The  roads  have  been  bad  but  are  now  hard  and  smooth. 
My  health  keeps  good,  and  I  rejoice  that  in  one  Avcek  more 
all  will  be  over,  as  far  as  this  great  measure  is  concerned. 
My  friends  are  in  the  highest  state  of  anxiety  and  excite- 
ment and  can  hardly  keep  their  senses.  I  have  just  closed 
a  conference  with  the  Democratic  nominee  for  Lieutenant- 
Governor,  of  two  hours,  and  had  a  similar  conference  with 
Governor  Whitcomb  to-day,  of  more  than  two  hours,  adjust- 
ing proceedings.  Now  I  have  to  go  and  look  after  my  Whig 
friends,  and  see  how  they  stand.  I  never  was  quite  in  such 
a  fix  as  I  am  here.  The  country  papers,  with  one  or  two 
exceptions,  speak  out  manfully,  and  I  am  encouraged  by  good 
men  of  both  parties. 

Satueday,  10th  January,  12  o'clock. 
It  is  now  exactly  12  o'clock,  and  Gov.  Whitcomb  has 
this  moment  left  me.  He  called  a  private  caucus  of  the 
Democratic  Senators  this  evening,  for  the  purpose  of  getting 
tliem  to  agree  to  go  as  one  man,  for  the  Bill,  and  took  very 
decided,  indeed  very  earnest  and  pressing  ground,  and  told 
them  that  he  was  committed  for  it,  that  it  was  a  great  and 
honest  measure,  and  one  which  the  Democrats  should  go  for 
as  a  party.  That  he  was  willing  to  go  to  the  stump  on  it, 
and  to  peril  his  political  fortunes  on  the  issue,  and  wanted 
his  friends  to  take  bold  and  decided  ground,  and  go  shoulder 
to  shoulder.  That  it  was  a  question  of  simple  honesty, 
and  they  could  not,  as  honest  men,  resist  it;  they  must  go 
for  it.  It  had  a  very  happy  effect  and  some  of  the  most 
stubborn  were  melted  down,  and  came  in  at  once  and  agreed 
to  go  for  it.  They  finally  agreed  to  have  anotlier  meeting  on 
Monday  evening,  and  my  hope  is  that  nearly  all,  if  not  all, 
the    Democratic   senators  will    go  in    for  it.     The    candidate 


486  T^HE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

for  Lieut.-Governor  is  equally  anxious,  and  will  attend  the 
meeting  on  Monday  evening  and  take  the  same  ground.  If 
this  movement  succeeds,  it  will  insure  the  passage  of  the 
Bill  next  week.  I  have  been  all  the  evening;  euffao-ed  witli 
the  Committee  again  on  amendments,  and  have  now  settled 
all  so  that  on  Monday  the  battle  will  come  off.  But  I  will 
not  count  on  it.  ^'  liufficient  unto  the  day  is  the  evil  thereof." 
I  fear  that  I  am  placing  too  much  reliance  upon  an  arm  of 
flesh,  and  not  enough  upon  an  Almighty  Arm.  I  ought  to 
see  the  hand  of  God  in  it  all,  and  labor  in  dependence  on 
His  blessing  alone. 

Sunday  Evening,  January  11th. 
It  is  now  precisely  12  again,  and  I  have  this  moment 
parted  from  Gov.  Whitcomb  and  Mr.  Bright,  with  whom  I 
have  been  engaged  the  last  hour.  As  in  Revolutionary 
times  there  are  no  Sabbaths,  so  it  seems  to  be  here  in  "debt 
paying"  times.  I  would  not  have  you  think  that  my  Sab- 
bath has  been  spent  in  the  business,  as  this  morning  I  wont 
to  Mr.  Gurley's,  and  this  evening  to  Mr.  Beecher's,  and 
after  meeting  went  and  spent  an  hour  and  a  half  with  Mr. 
Beecher  and  a  friend,  very  pleasantly.  The  business  is, 
however,  so  pressing,  and  the  time  is  so  short,  and  the  ol)ject 
so  great  that  the  day  has  been  spent  by  its  friends  and  its 
enemies  in  great  activity,  I  understand.  Gov.  Whitcomb 
and  Mr.  Bright  work  night  and  day,  day  in  and  day  out ; 
the  Governor  said  he  could  not  sleep  at  all,  and  as  the 
question  may  be  decided  to-morrow  and  must  be  next  day 
at  the  furthest,  and  the  difficulties  are  so  great,  that  it 
demands  the  uttermost  exertion  from  the  friends  of  public 
credit  to  carry  it,  the  Governor  called  a  caucus  this  evening 
of  all  the  opposiiif/  Democratic  members  of  the  House  to 
confer  with  them,  and  see  if  he  could  n't  get  them  to  agree 
to  support  it,  and   he   and    Mr.  Bright   discussed    it   all    the 


CHARLES  BUTLER,    LL.D.  487 

evening.  The  meeting  had  a  good  effect,  but  they  are  very 
stubborn  and  the  result  is  uncertain.  They  say  it  is  proper 
Sunday  work,  that  it  is  lifting  the  ox  out  of  the  gutter. 
To-morrow — I  might  say  to-day,  for  it  is  now  20  minutes 
after  12 — the  question  will  be  taken,  probably  to  decide  it. 
I  cannot  but  admire  Gov.  Whitcomb's  decision  and  effort — 
he  has  taken  the  only  true  ground.  He  is  resolved  that  it 
shall  go,  if  any  effort  or  influence  of  his  can  insure  it,  and 
he  is  a  host  when  he  takes  hold. 

Monday  Evening,  7  p.  m. 
I  threw  down  my  pen  this  morning  to  go  and  see  the 
Governor.  The  day  has  been  a  busy  one.  The  Bill  was 
put  off  till  to-morrow  10  o'clock,  and  referred  back  to  the 
Committee,  and  is  now  in  my  hands  for  amendments.  It 
will  certainly  come  on  to-morrow  (13th);  its  fate  is  doubt- 
ful. This  evening  the  Governor  has  called  all  his  Demo- 
cratic friends  together  to  a  caucus  to  confer  with  them  again, 
and  its  fate  will  be  sealed  one  way  or  the  other.  He  and 
Mr.  Bright  have  just  left  me  to  go  to  the  meeting.  The 
Governor  seemed  completely  worn  out  and  complained  of 
indisposition,  and  I  sent  out  for  a  bottle  of  champagne  for 
him,  and  gave  him  a  glass,  which  he  said  tasted  good,  and 
revived  him.  I  told  him  to  take  the  bottle  along  to  the 
Capitol,  which  he  did.  You  will  laugh  at  this,  I  am  sure, 
I  could  n't  help  laughing  myself.  I  shall  in  this  campaign 
lay  up  a  fund  to  serve  me  for  a  life-time.  It  is  the  queerest 
and  still  the  greatest  business  I  ever  had  on  hand.  It  is  a 
regular  set-to,  and  calls  into  exercise  the  most  skillful  tactics 
and  diplomacy.  I  think  that  the  Governor,  Mr.  Bright  and 
myself  make  a  strong  team,  still  we  may  not  be  able  to 
carry  it.  We  can  only  count  on,  as  yet,  forty-five  certain 
in  the  House ;  we  must  have  fifty.     It  is  close  counting,  and 


488  ^^^    UA'ION   THEOLOGICAL  SEMLNARY. 

of  course  the  result  is  uncertain.  Gov.  \yhitcomb  has  taken 
the  most  manly  and  decided  course  throughout,  and  more 
than  sustained  his  pledges  to  me,  and  so  has  ]\Ir.  Bright. 
I  have  no  time  to  add  more. 

NoTA  Bene.     Kcc])   all  my  letters  from  here  ccirefully,  as 
part  of  my  journal  arid  memoranda. 

Indianapolis,  Monday  night, 
12tli  January,  1846. 
It  is  now  half-past  twelve,  and  Mr.  Bright  has  just  come 
in  from  the  Democratic  caucus  and  reports  that  they  have, 
by  a  very  large  vote,  decided  on  passing  the  bill,  with  a 
proviso  to  submit  it  to  the  people  to  decide  at  the  August 
election,  whether  it  shall  be  a  law  or  not — the  people  to  vote 
directly  for  it.  This  course  of  the  Democrats  will  ruin  the 
party,  and  put  the  bill  in  jeopardy,  and  devolves  on  me  a 
terrible  responsibility.  The  question  with  me  is,  am  I  at 
liberty  to  incur  so  great  a  risk  as  the  loss  of  the  entire 
public  debt  by  this  course  ?  Ought  I  not  to  withdraw  my 
proposal,  and  thus  let  the  bill  fall  to  the  ground?  Supix)se 
the  people  should  vote  against  it ;  that  would  forever  destroy 
the  hopes  of  the  bond-holders  ;  and  as  the  members  of  the 
Legislature  distrust  the  people,  ought  I  not  to  distrust  them  ? 
The  great  objection,  that  strikes  my  mind,  is  that  it  is  im- 
possible for  the  people  in  so  short  a  time  to  make  themselves 
acquainted  with  the  details  of  the  bill,  and  they  will  quarrel 
about  the  details. 

"  Through  all  the  various  shifting  scenes, 
Of  life's  mistaken  ill  or  good, 
Thy  hand,  0  God,  conducts  unseen 
The  beautiful  vicissitude." 

Tuesday,  13th,  2  r.  m. 
The  battle  commenced  this  morning   at   ten,  and    is    now 
on.     Have  had  six  or  seven  speeches,  pro  and  con.     The  dis- 


CHARLES  BUTLER,   LL.D.  489 

cussion  is  on  the  amendment  to  submit  it  to  the  vote  of  the 
people  at  the  August  election.  I  cannot  predict  the  fate  of 
the  amendment ;  I  hope  it  will  not  prevail.  If  it  docs,  I 
may  feel  constrained  to  withdraw  my  proposition  altogether. 
I  dare  not  risk  the  loss  of  the  whole. 

7   P.  M. 

The  battle  is  closed  for  to-day ;  the  House  has  just 
adjourned.  The  vote  on  the  amendment  was  taken  and 
rejected,  If.9  to  Jf.t.  This  weakening  insures  the  passage  of 
the  bill  through  the  House  to-morrow.  The  debate  to-day 
was  very  exciting,  and  some  good  speeches  made  on  both 
sides.  Some  very  fine  ones  on  our  side,  and  some  very  bad 
ones  on  the  other  side.  The  minority  are  very  much  excited, 
and  a  violent  effort  will  be  made  yet  to  defeat  it,  on  its 
final  vote  to-morrow.  The  time  is  very  short  and  we  may 
lose  it.  I  had  made  up  my  mind  to  withdraw  the  propo- 
sition if  they  had  added  the  amendment.  I  dared  not  take 
the  responsibility  of  the  risk,  involved  in  the  submission, — 
though  it  might  be  small.  I  have  no  time  to  atld  more,  I 
am  too  pressed  to  think.     Kiss  the  children. 

This  has  been  a  most  exciting  day,  and  yet  I  have  been 
cool.  The  ememy  made  a  terrible  assault  on  me,  as  the 
representative  of  the  British  bondholders.  One  man  said  the 
bill  sold  out  the  whole  people,  land  and  all,  to  the  British. 
The  oldest  gentleman  in  tlie  House,  Father  Pennington,  made 
a  most  excellent  speech  in  my  defense,  and  vindicated  me 
from  the  attacks,  in  a  very  manly  and  gratifying  manner. 
I  cannot  give  you  any  idea  of  the  events  of  to-day. 

Indianapolis,  January  14,  1846. 
7:15  P.  M. 
My  Dear  Wife  : 

After  a  most  desperate  battle  all  day,  we  closed  this  eve- 
ning with  a  complete  victory,  5(3  to  30.     The  question  taken 


490  '^HE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

last  evening  was  reconsidered  to-day  by  a  very  large  vote, 
and  the  bill  was  in  great  danger,  under  a  furious  debate,  till 
6  P.  M.  when  the  vote  was  taken  as  above.  At  3  p.  m.  I 
had  to  make  a  further  concession,  which  Avas  thrown  in  at 
the  very  crisis  of  its  fate,  and  created  a  terrible  commotion. 
To-morrow,  we  shall  have  another  fight,  and  a  final  one,  and 
then  we  have  to  go  through  the  Senate.  The  Governor  and 
Mr.  Bright  and  several  others  have  just  come  in  and  my 
room  is  thronged.  My  friends  are  in  fine  spirits,  but  I  do 
not  yet  count  on  success.  The  vote  of  last  evening  was  rev- 
olutionized so  suddenly  this  morning,  as  to  preclude  certainty. 
I  have  no  time  to  write.      Kiss  the  dear  children. 

January  15th. 
The  bill  passed  through  the  House  to-day  by  a  vote  of 
61  to  33,  nearly  2  to  1, — after  another  furious  onslaught  on 
me.  The  bill  will  be  killed  in  the  Senate,  in  spite  of  every 
effort,  by  the  unreasonable  and  absurd  notions  of  some  Sen- 
ators, and  the  shameful  conduct  of  others. 

Indianapolis,  Friday  evening,  7  p.  m. 
16th  of  January,  1846. 
My  Dear  Wife  : 

At  the  close  of  one  of  the  most  exciting  and  trying  days 
of  my  life,  I  am  happy  to  say  that  the  bill  was  ordered  to 
a  third  reading  in  the  Senate  this  evening  by  a  vote  of  31 
to  18.  The  debate  was  most  violent  and  exciting,  and  the 
conflict  a  long  time  doubtful.  I  had  to  yield  to  some  amend- 
ments again,  which  are,  to  some  extent,  objectionable,  but 
not  fatal.  The  great  question  is  settled.  The  bill  is  now, 
I  think,  beyond  danger.  Will  be  concurred  in  by  the  House 
to-morrow,  and  signed  by  the  Governor  on  Monday,  the  last 
day  of  the  session.  The  Governor,  by  the  way,  was  taken 
very  sick  this  morning  in  my   room,    and  was  obliged  to   go 


CHARLES  BUTLER,    LL.Ef.  491 

to  bed,  and  has  been  unable  to  leave  since.  He  has  been 
removed  this  evening  into  an  adjoining  room,  where  he  lies 
very  ill  with  a  pleuritic  attack.  I  verily  believe  that  his 
labors  and  anxieties  for  this  measure  have  made  him  sick. 
I  am  almost  sick  myself  with  a  severe  cold  which  has  come 
within  the  last  thirty-six  hours,  and  just  during  the  most 
trying  crisis  of  my  business. 

On  Wednesday  evening,  the  fight  closed  in  the  House, 
and  the  bill  was  ordered  to  a  third  reading,  and  on  coming 
home  I  found  your  letter  of  the  6th,  with  Ogdcn's  enclosed, 
and  also  a  good,  long  letter  from  Cornelia,  giving  me  the 
most  gratifying  news  respecting  father  and  mother.  I  thought 
that  I  had  too  many  mercies  and  favors  heaped  on  me  at 
once.  To  know  that  you  are  all  well,  and  to  get  letters  so 
frequently  is  most  gratifying,  and  is  a  cordial  under  the 
most  trying  burdens.  Tell  dear  Emily  that  I  hope  she  and 
dear  Anna  are  both  good  girls,  and  that  I  do  want  to  see 
them  very  much.  There  is  a  little  orjjhan  boy,  about  four 
years  old,  in  the  house  who  comes  up  every  day  to  see  me. 
He  is  a  great  favorite  and  loves  me  very  much.  He  is  a 
generous  little  fellow.  If  he  gets  any  candy  or  cake  he  is 
sure  to  bring  it  to  me  aud  insist  on  my  sharing  it  with  hiui. 
He  is  a  noble  hearted,  manly  little  fellow.  As  for  Ogden, 
he  gives  me  great  comfort  by  his  industry  and  progress.  I 
hope  he  will  keep  his  heart  right  before  his  Maker,  and  be 
sure  to  set  a  strict  guard  upon  his  tongue.  Kiss  the  dear 
children  for  me. 

VII. 

The  final  passage  of  the  bill  nearly  prevented  by  a, 
characte7"istic  demagogical  pledge  and  trick  of  the 
repudiators :  an  object  lesson  in  subterranean 
politics. — Another  anti-bond  paying  trick  met  and 


492  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

thwarted  by  a  neiv  concession  in  behalf  of  the 
creditors. — The  bill  signed  by  Governor  Whit- 
combe  while  still  lying  very  ill  in  bed. — Joy  at 
Terre  Haute  and  all  over  the  State  at  the  passage  of 
the  bill. — Henry    Ward  Beecher  and  Mr.  Gurley. 

Indianapolis,  17th  of  January,  1846. 
My  labors  have  been  crowned  with  complete  success. 
The  public  credit  of  Indiana  is  restored  and  her  bond-holders 
provided  for.  The  progress  of  the  measure,  from  its  incep- 
tion, has  been  wonderful  and  sure,  but  every  step  has  been 
contested  inch  by  inch,  and  every  possible  measure  has  been 
resorted  to,  to  defeat  it.  The  last  and  most  desperate  took 
place  on  Thursday  night,  when  1 1  Senators  met  and  entered 
into  a  solemn  pledge,  in  writing,  with  each  other,  that  if 
the  question  was  forced  on  them,  on  the  passage  of  the  bill, 
they  would  leave  their  seats  in  the  Senate  and  break  up  a 
quorum,  and  so  defeat  the  bill.  This  pledge  was  signed  by 
11,  taking  in  leading  men  in  the  Senate,  chiefly  Whigs.  A 
friend  of  the  bill,  an  honorable  Whig  Senator,  happened  to 
go  into  the  room  where  the  caucus  had  been  held  at  a  very 
late  hour,  and  just  as  it  had  broken  up.  Taking  his  seat 
by  the  table,  his  eye,  unwittingly,  rested  on  the  paper,  which 
had  been  signed  and  incautiously  left  on  the  table.  He 
seemed  not  to  notice  it,  but  read  it  over  carefully  with  the 
names,  and  when  he  retired  from  the  room,  immediately 
committed  to  paper  the  substance  of  the  pledge,  with  the 
names  of  the  Senators.  While  he  sat  near  the  table,  and 
after  he  had  thus  become  possessed  of  the  facts,  Mr.  Hollo- 
way  (the  Senator  in  whose  room  it  took  place)  noticed  the 
paper  lying  there,  and  slyly  put  out  his  hand  and  turned  it 
over,  Mr.  Coffin  not  seeming  to  notice  it.  The  detection  of 
this  consjiiracy  gave  our  friends  a  decided  advantage;  they 


CHARLES  BUTLER,  LL.D.  493 

kept  it  strictly  to  themselves,  and  when  tlie  discussion  came 
on  yesterday,  they  watched  the  movements  of  the  conspirators 
closely.  The  latter  interposed  every  possible  obstacle  and 
amendment,  and  bye  and  bye  one  of  the  leading  Senators 
got  up  and,  in  the  course  of  his  speech,  alluded  to  the 
combination  which  produced  a  great  sensation.  He  was 
called  upon  to  give  names,  the  principal  parties  being  the 
most  vociferous.  The  Senator  on  the  floor  said  the  informa- 
tion had  been  given  to  him  confidentially  by  a  Senator  who 
was  within  sound  of  his  voice,  and  with  his  consent  he 
would  give  the  names.  Mr.  Coffin  immediately  arose  and 
promptly  cried  out,  ^'I  am  the  hoy!'' 

Of  course,  this  electrified  the  Senate  and  audience,  and 
he  then  told  the  story  most  inimitably  and  let  the  cat  out 
of  the  bag.  Such  a  scene  of  confusion  and  excitement  fol- 
lowed as  was  both  amusing  and  distressing.  The  object  of 
the  exposition  was  to  save  those  Senators  who  were  really 
honest  and  knew  nothing  of  the  desperate  intentions  of  the 
party,  from  being  drawn  into  them,  and  this  effect  it  had 
and  saved  the  bill.  Every  amendment  was  voted  down, 
and  the  bill  passed  by  a  vote  of  31  to  18,  and  to-day  by  a 
larger  vote,  32  to  15,  and  one  friend  out.  Another  exciting 
passage  occurred  on  Thursday  afternoon.  Mr.  Buel,  a  lead- 
ing Senator  in  opposition,  offered  an  amendment,  requiring 
one-half  of  all  the  bonds  to  be  surrendered  and  cancelled 
before  the  act  should  take  effect.  This  amendment  I  was 
unwilling  to  assent  to  as  it  came  from  the  extreme  left, 
that  is  from  the  ultra-opponents  of  the  bill,  and  the  object 
was,  of  course,  to  defeat  it.  This  amendment  was  offered 
to  the  Senate  bill,  which  they  had  under  discussion  when 
the  House  bill  was  reported.  This  last  bill  was  then  agreed 
to  be  taken  up  yesterday  morning,  and  when  it  came  up 
Mr.  Buel  offered    what   was    stated   and   su})posed  to   l)c   the 


494  THE    UNION    THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

same  amendment,  (it  Avas  not  read)  to  the  House  bill. 
The  discussion  on  it  was  very  warm,  and  I  had,  at  the 
instance  of  Mr.  Bright,  told  Mr.  Lane  that  he  might  agree 
to  the  proposition  of  Mr.  Buel,  especially  as  it  appeared 
that  it  would  satisfy  nearly  half  the  Senate  and  disarm 
opposition.  Mr.'  Lane  had  just  risen  to  speak,  as  I  had 
Avhispered  it  to  him,  and  he  announced  it.  It  was  received 
with  a  shout  of  applause  and  stamping  and  clapping  of 
hands,  by  the  whole  Senate,  as  a  compromise. 

The  reading  of  Buel's  amendment  was  then  called  for  and 
behold,  on  hearing  it,  I  instantly  said  that  it  required  not 
half,  but  that  every  single  bond  should  be  surrendered  before 
the  act  should  take  effect.  It  was  so  artfully  drawn  that  a 
superficial  reading  of  it  left  the  impression  that  only  half 
was  required.  This  led  to  another  scene  of  excitement,  and 
Avhen  Coffin  exposed  the  caucus  intrigue  tlie  history  of  this 
amendment  Avas  unravelled.  The  enemies  of  the  bill  had  all 
rallied,  on  Buel's  amendment,  Thursday  afternoon,  and  every 
one  of  them  said,  "  If  you  will  only  adopt  that,  we  will  go 
for  the  bill,"  and  when  I  finally  assented  on  Friday  fore- 
noon, it  was  to  catch  all  and  take  them  at  their  word. 
They  found,  it  seemed,  that  the  amendment  offered  on 
Thursday  afternoon  did  not  go  far  enough  to  defeat  the  bill, 
and  the  amendment  offered  yesterday  was  shaped  accordingly. 
It  was  handed  to  the  clerk  and  not  read,  with  a  remark 
that  it  was  the  same  as  had  been  previously  offered.  The 
explanation  helped  us,  and  put  the  parties  to  shame.  The 
Senators  who  were  in  the  secret,  when  Mr.  Lane  agreed  to 
adopt  the  substitute,  were  elated  and  shouted  because  they 
thought  they  had  trapped  us,  while  the  other  part  of  the 
Senate  were  elated  because  they  received  it  as  a  compromi.se 
and  would  secure  harmony  in  the  })assage  of  the  bill.  The 
error  Avas  corrected   by   a  Scnatoi-,  offci'lug   the   very   anieud- 


CHARLES  BUTLER,   LL.D.  495 

ment  which  had  been  first  proposed,  and  to  which  I  sup- 
posed I  had  agreed,  and  then  these  men  (the  leaders)  all 
turned  around  and  hotly  opposed  it !  It  rendered  them  so 
ridiculous  tliat  they  lost  their  strength,  and  though  they 
fought  desperately  to  the  last  they  were  completely  foiled. 
There  are  a  great  many  incidents  connected  with  the  progress 
of  the  bill,  equally  exciting  at  the  time,  but  it  is  impossible 
to  give  any  idea  of  them  on  paper.  I  rejoice  that  it  is 
over.  Since  I  commenced  writing  a  friend  has  come  in  to 
inform  me  that  the  amendments  have  been  concurred  in  by 
the  House  with  only  two  dissenting  votes.  Everybody  is  now 
friendly  to  the  bill.  On  Monday  the  Governor  (who,  by 
the  way,  is  very  unwell  and  in  bed  yet)  will  put  his 
signature  to  it,  and  that  will  be  the  last  act  in  the  business, 
and  my  mission  will  be  closed.  I  cannot  say  yet  when  I 
shall  be  able  to  leave.  I  have  a  great  deal  to  do.  Love  to 
all  and  kisses  for  the  children. 

Indianapolis,  19th  of  January,  1846. 
My  Dear  Wife  : 

I  am  happy  to  say  to  you  that  the  l)ill  to  redeem  the 
credit  of  Indiana  and  finish  her  great  canal,  has  this  day 
received  the  signature  of  the  Governor.  He  signed  it  in  bed 
in  my  presence,  saying  that  it  was  one  of  the  most  gratify- 
ing acts  of  his  life.  He  is  yet  very  sick  and  confined  to  his 
bed,  not  being  able  to  be  removed  to  his  own  house.  The 
necessary  tax  bill,  and  all  other  needful  bills  to  give  effect 
to  the  measure,  have  also  passed.  Thus  my  mission  is  ac- 
complished, and  God  has  smiled  on  me  and  on  all  my 
endeavors.  It  has  been  the  more  remarkable  because,  as  you 
will  see  from  my  letters,  I  never  counted  a  day  ahead  on 
anything  certain.  Every  day  found  and  left  me  uncertain 
as  to  the    probable    issue.      I   am   sure   now  that  the  bill   is 


496  '^^^    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

passed,  though  it  seems  like  a  dream.  The  friends  of  public 
credit  are  overjoyed.  They  are  now  taking  leave  of  me. 
I  assure  you  that  I  have  become  so  attached  to  some  of 
these  people,  who  have  stood  by  me  through  thick  and 
thin,  that  I  feel  sorry  to  part  with  them.  I  feel  as  if  Avith 
them  I  have  gone  through  a  protracted  scene  of  trial  and 
conflict.  Adversity  sweetens  friendship  and  binds  the  tie 
more  closely.  I  shall  never  forget  them  and  I  am  sure  they 
will  not  me,  and  if  I  should  want  to  leave  for  the  West  I 
should  now  find  warm  hearts  and  honest  hands  to  give  me 
a  welcome  in  Indiana.  The  people  are  warm  hearted  and 
hospitable. 

I  cannot  say  yet  when  I  shall  leave.  I  am  suffering 
from  severe  cold  and  sore  throat,  and  shall  give  myself  up 
to  rest  for  a  few  days  after  the  Legislature  adjourns.  They 
hold  on  to-morrow  in  consequence  of  the  Governor's  sick- 
ness, and  then  we  shall  be  quiet  enough.  I  have  a  great 
(leal  to  do  to  make  up  my  report  to  the  bondholders,  which 
I  must  do,  before  I  leave. 

Indianapolis,  January  22,  1846. 
The  Governor  is  convalescent.  I  rode  out  with  him  this 
r.  M,  By  next  week  I  hope  that  both  of  us  will  be  well 
enough  to  finish  up  our  business.  I  cannot  yet  say  when  I 
will  leave.  I  have  a  great  deal  of  hard  labor  yet  to  per- 
form, to  prepare  my  report  to  my  constituents.  The  feeling 
a])out  the  bill  is  excellent.  On  receiving  the  intelligence  of 
its  passage  at  Terre  Haute,  about  eleven  o'clock  at  night, 
its  friends  fired  cannon  and  illuminated,  and  the  people  came 
together  and  they  had  a  jubilee.  Such  will  be  the  feeling 
throughout  the  State  ;  at  the  same  time,  tlici-e  will  be  a  desper- 
ate efltbrt  made  to  raise  opposition  to  tlie  bill.  The  politicians 
are   pondering   what   they  shall  do,  es])('('ially  the  Whigs. 


CHARLES  BUTLER,   LL.D.  497 

I  have  received  a  very  complimentary  letter,  signed  by 
the  leading  members  of  the  Ijogislaturc,  and  leading  citizens 
of  Indianapolis,  to  which  I  shall  reply  next  week.  To- 
morrow will  be  my  last  day  to  write  for  the  steamer  of  first 
of  February.  I  have  kept  np  a  very  thorough  correspon- 
dence with  Mr.  King,  having  written  him  every  day  during 
the  whole  session,  and  it  has  been  no  small  job,  I  assure 
you. 

I  have  had  an  excellent  assistant  in  Mr.  Dodge,  of  Terre 
Haute,  a  most  estimable  gentleman,  who  has  been  my  secre- 
tary, and  is  yet  Avith  me.  His  wife  scolds  a  little  at  my 
keeping  him  so  long,  but  she  is  reconciled  to  it,  as  she 
thinks  he  is  engaged  in  a  good  work.  Give  my  love  to  all. 
Kiss  the  dear  children. 

Indianapolis,  Feb'y  7,  1846. 
Colonel  Blake  and  the  Governor  are  the  only  boys  left 
to  keep  me  company.  Everybody  here  is  a  hoy.  A  member 
of  the  Legislature  in  speaking  of  it  will  say  "the  boys." 
The  Colonel  is  an  old  widower  "boy"  of  55,  and  the 
Governor  a  bachelor  "  boy  "  of  48. 

Sunday  Evening,  Feb'y  8. 
This  morning  I  heard  Mr,  Beecher  on  Luke  12  :  47: 
And  that  servant  which  kneio  his  Lord's  will  and  prepared  not 
himself,  neither  did  according  to  His  toill,  shall  be  becden  with 
many  stripes.  The  subject  was  the  nature  and  effect  of  mere 
neglect  upon  moral  character,  and  it  was  a  very  pungent, 
solemn  discourse.  He  is  an  extraordinary  young  man,  highly 
gifted  as  to  talents,  a  remarkably  fine  speaker — eloquent, 
indeed — a  wonderful  knowledge  of  human  nature  and  a  tact, 
if  I  may  so  speak,  of  exhibiting  it,  which  carries  you  along 
irresistil)ly  with  him.  He  is  an  able  reasoner,  too.  Old 
Dr.  Beecher  more   than  lives   in   this  son   again.     He  seems 


498  ^^^    L^NION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

deeply  exercised  in.  liis  "work  and  lii«  feelings  are  very 
tender.  Often  his  face  is  suffused  with  tears  in  prayer  and 
in  preaching  with  the  weight  and  pressure  of  his  subject. 
He  touches  the  deepest  chord  of  the  human  heart  and  wakes 
you  up  powerfully.  He  is  deservedly  popular  and  draws 
full  houses.  Mr.  Gurley,  from  whose  prayer-meeting  I  have 
just  come  in,  is  also  a  most  solemn  preacher;  always  wdth- 
out  notes,  but  always  methodical  and  logical.  He,  too,  is  a 
fine  young  man.  He  is  of  the  Old  School.  Mr.  Beecher 
is  of  the  New  School.  I  love  them  both  and  there  is  a 
kind,  Christian  feeling  among  them.  They  work  together 
and  so  do  all  the  churches  here.* 

Cincinnati,  Sunday  Evening,  February  22,  1846. 
I  thought  that  in  this  business  I  was  doing  good  and 
promoting  the  welfare  of  a  State  and  its  hundreds  of  thous- 
ands of  people  and  of  generations  yet  to  come.  The  influence 
of  my  operations  is  not  limited  to  Indiana  itself,  but  will 
tell  on  the  destiny  of  other  States  and  the  country  at  large. 
The  measure  is  not  yet  sufficiently  estimated,  nor,  indeed, 
can  it  be.  A  few  years  will  develop  its  fruits  and  effects 
more  strikingly,  and  it  will  be  regarded  Avith  admiration. 

*  The  Rev.  Henry  Warp  Beecher  was  settled  at  Indianapolis  as 
pastor  of  the  New  School  Presbyterian  Church  in  1839.  He  wastlien  twenty- 
six  years  old.  In  1847  he  was  installed  as  pastor  of  the  Plymouth  Congrega- 
tional Church  in  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.,  where  his  name  and  influence  soon  became 
world-wide. 

The  Rev.  Phineas  Densmore  Gurley,  D.D.,  was  a  native  of  Hamilton, 
N.  Y.  His  father  was  a  Quaker,  though  descended  from  Scotch  Covenanters  ; 
his  mother  was  a  IMethodist  and  he  seemed  to  combine  as  an  Old  School 
Presbyterian,  the  best  qualities  of  all  three.  On  the  reconnnendation  of  "Old 
Dr.  Alexander,"  of  Princeton,  he  was  called  to  the  Fii-st  Presbyterian  Church 
in  Indianapolis,  being  then  in  his  twenty-fourth  year.  In  1854  he  accepted  a 
call  to  Washington,  where  he  labored  with  great  success  for  many  years.  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  one  of  his  warmest  friends  and  admirers.  No  better  or  truer 
man  could  Ijc  found  in  the  Presbvterian  ministrv  of  liisdav.     He  died  in  186S. 


CHARLES  BUTLER,   LL.D.  499 

IV. 

MY    EARLIEST    ACQUAINTANCE    WITH    MR.  BUTLER. HIS 

INFLUENCE  IN  PROCURING  THE  FIRST  ENDOWMENT 
OF  UNION  SEMINARY.  WHAT  HE  WAS  TO  THAT 
INSTITUTION     AND     TO     THE     UNIVERSITY     OF     THE 

CITY    OF    NEW    YORK. EXTRACTS     FROM     DR.    VIN- 

CENT's   MEMORIAL   ADDRESS. DEATH   OF    HIS    SON 

OGDEN. 

Mr.  Butler's  work  at  Detroit  and  Indianapolis  at- 
tracted wide  attention  and  at  once  marked  him  out  as 
a  man  of  extraordinary  wisdom  and  force  of  character. 
This  cannot,  j^erhaps,  be  more  clearly  shown  than  by 
referring  to  a  meeting  of  the  council,  faculties  and 
friends  of  the  University  of  the  city  of  New  York,  held 
on  the  evening  of  December  13,  1886,  to  commemorate 
Mr.  Butler's  fifty  years  of  service  to  the  institution. 
Mr.  John  E.  Parsons,  the  eminent  lawyer,  delivered  an 
address  on  behalf  of  the  council  and  faculties.  In  this 
address  Mr.  Parsons  thus  alluded  to  Mr.  Butler's 
legal  course : 

As  a  lawyer  you  reached  distinction  among  your  com- 
peers at  a  period  from  which  there  is  scarcely  a  survivor  in 
active  life ;  you  had  the  holders  of  the  public  debt  of 
sovereign  States  for  your  clients,  and  gained  early  renown 
in  the  settlement  of  legal  and  financial  questions  by  which, 
as  the  result  of  your  ability,  the  rapid  progress  of  those 
States  was  promoted.  In  the  development  of  the  great 
West,  from  highways  and  waterways  to  raihvays,  you  have 
had    a   conspicuous    part,   and   your   statesmanship  gave   you 


600  'I^HE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

great  power  in  your  constant  purpose  for  the  Avelfare  of  the 
University.  .  .  .  An  occasion  like  this  is  rare  in  human 
history,  still  more  unmatched  for  the  promise  your  unbroken 
energy  gives  us  that  you  will  continue  to  be  wise  in  coun- 
sels, and  foremost  among  us  in  efforts. 

Soon  after  Mr.  Butler's  settlement  in  New  York 
another  chapter  in  his  remarkable  career  oj)ened  before 
him — the  chaj^ter  which  records  his  invakiable  services 
to  the  cause  of  the  higher  education.  These  services 
were  rendered  mainly  in  helping  to  found  and  build 
up  two  great  institutions  of  Christian  culture  and 
learning,  viz.:  the  University  of  the  City  of  New  York 
and  Union  Theological  Seminary.  It  was  in  connec- 
tion with  the  latter  institution  that  my  own  intimate 
acquaintance  with  Mr.  Butler  may  almost  be  said  to 
have  begun.  I  first  met  him  in  the  spring  of  1851,  on 
my  becoming  pastor  of  the  Mercer  street  Presbyterian 
church,  of  which  he  was  then  a  ruling  elder.  In 
October  of  that  year  I  made  an  appeal  to  my  people 
for  the  immediate  endowment  of  the  Union  Theologi- 
cal Seminary.  Mr.  Butler  seconded  my  a|:>peal  with 
all  his  soul  and  strength.  Early  in  1852  he  gave  in 
furtherance  of  this  object  a  reception  at  his  house  in 
14th  Street.  Many  of  New  York's  foremost  citizens — 
men  of  national  reputation — were  present  on  the  occa- 
sion. At  this  meeting — largely  through  Mr.  Butler's 
(|uiet  but  potent  influence — it  was  resolved  that  an 
effort  should  at  once  be  made  to  raise  $100,000  for  the 
endowment  of  the  seminary.     Speedy  success  crowned 


CHARLES  BUTLER,    LL.D.  501 

the  effort.  This  was  the  beginning  of  the  long  succes- 
sion of  special  efforts  and  benefactions  by  which  the 
institution  has  attained  its  present  high  position  ;  and 
at  every  step  of  the  progress  Mr.  Butler's  devotion 
only  grew  stronger  and  more  helpful.  A  few  extracts 
from  the  address  at  his  funeral  by  the  Rev.  Marvin  R. 
Vincent,  D.D.,  one  of  his  old  pastors,  will  show  how 
abundant  and  faithful  were  his  labors  along  not  only 
this  but  many  other  lines  of  humane  and  Christian 
activity  : 

It  has  been  trathfully  said  of  Mr.  Butler  that  a  pro- 
phetic instinct  dominated  all  his  acts,  and  that  each  act  was 
so  conceived  and  so  fulfilled  as  to  insure  increasing  useful- 
ness with  the  increasing  lapse  of  years.  This  was  manifest 
in  that  work  by  which  he  is  best  known  and  by  which  he 
will  continue  longest  to  be  known— the  promotion  of  liberal 
education.  It  was  not  only  that  he  desired  to  see  literary 
institutions  established  to  meet  immediate  needs;  it  was 
also  that  he  was  anxious  to  see  these  inaugurated  on  lines 
which  Avould  admit  of  their  expansion  and  ready  adaptation 
to  future  and  larger  needs.  Work  of  this  character  has  an 
eternal  quality  which  is  wanting  to  material  achievement. 
The  gray  old  obelisk  looks  down  on  the  throngs  in  Central 
Park  to-day,  as  it  looked  down  on  the  Egypt  of  the  Pha- 
raohs and  of  Moses ;  yet  in  all  the  centuries  in  which  it 
has  been  toilsomely  transported  from  city  to  city,  it  remains 
only  a  stone,  a  huge,  unproductive  bulk,  while  the  words 
and  the  story  of  Moses  whose  burial  place  no  man  knoweth, 
have  wrought  themselves  as  living  forces  into  the  life  of 
generations.  By  his  labors,  his  counsels  and  his  gifts  in 
the  cause  of  education  Mr.  Butler   has   set   in   motion  influ- 


502  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

ences  which  are  wrought  into  tlie  society,  tlio  ideals,  the 
morals  and  the  culture  of  this  city  and  of  this  and  other 
lands,  and  which  are  asserting  themselves  with  ever-growing 
emphasis.  These  influences  are  deep-lying,  silent,  unrecog- 
nized by  the  general  public,  but  they  are  none  the  less  real 
and  potent. 

He  was  one  of  the  earliest  patrons  of  the  New  York 
University,  and  became  a  member  of  its  council  six  years 
after  its  organization.  He  completed  the  fiftieth  year  of  his 
service  in  the  council  in  December,  1886,  and  was  its  pres- 
ident to  the  day  of  his  death.  During  all  those  years,  by 
the  example  of  his  character,  l)y  his  wisdom  and  energy, 
and  by  his  generous  gift  he  helped  to  prepare  the  wav  for 
that  new  and  larger  career  upon  which  the  institution  has 
entered,  the  beginnings  of  which  he  lived  to  witness  and 
rejoice   in. 

He  was  one  of  the  founders  of  Union  Theological  Semi- 
nary and  was  a  member  of  the  first  Board  of  Directors,  a 
position  which  he  continued  to  hold  for  the  remainder  of 
his  life.  At  the  time  of  his  death  he  had  been  the  presi- 
dent of  the  Board  for  twenty-seven  years.  I  think  that  no 
interest  lay  nearer  to  his  heart  than  that  of  Union  Semi- 
nary. It  was  not  only  that  he  deeply  felt  the  necessity  of 
such  an  institution,  and  thoroughly  believed  in  the  principles 
for  which  it  stood,  but  he  had  for  it  the  affection  which  one 
acquires  for  an  object  which  he  has  helped  to  carry  through 
and  struggle  for.  Through  the  first  thirteen  years  of  its 
history,  when  its  very  existence  was  threatened  by  commer- 
cial panic,  when  its  treasury  was  empty,  when  its  building 
and  library  were  mortgaged,  and  its  instructors  unpaid,  he 
was  its  steadfast  friend  and  bencfiictor,  never  relaxing  his 
efforts  to  free  it  from  its  embarrassments  and  to  place  it 
upon  a  permanent  basis.      And  after  the  peril  was  over,  and 


CHARLES  BUTLER,   LL.D.  503 

the  success  and  prosperity  apparently  assured  through  the 
baptism  of  fire  which  followed,  he  never  flinched,  never  lent 
an  ear  to  half-way  measures,  never  forsook  the  men  whose 
reputation  and  position  were  at  stake,  never  dreamt  of  sur- 
render, and  never  lost  faith  in  the  coming  of  that  brighter 
morrow  whose  dawn  lent  its  lustre  and  its  joy  to  his  last 
days.  Notwithstanding  his  advanced  age  he  continued  to 
preside  at  the  meetings  of  the  board  until  less  than  two 
years  ago.  He  was  always  present  at  the  annual  alumni 
meetings,  and  until  the  seminary  commencement  in  May 
last,  he  regularly  appeared  at  the  graduation  exercises,  and 
presented  their  diplomas  to  the  class,  with  either  a  formal 
address  to  the  entire  body  or  a  few  appropriate  words  to 
each  graduate.  For  years  it  has  been  his  custom  to  give 
a  reception  to  the  senior  class  at  his  house,  on  some  evening 
shortly  before  their  graduation,  and  to  add  to  his  elegant 
hospitality  words  of  ripe  wisdom  and  fatherly  counsel. 

The  reach  and  the  fruit  of  work  such  as  he  has  done 
through  these  two  institutions,  it  is  not  possible  to  compute. 
It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  if  he  had  accomplished  noth- 
ing else,  he  would  have  richly  served  his  day  and  generation. 
When  one  thinks  of  the  graduates  of  the  University  during 
nearly  seventy  years, — of  two  full  generations  which  have 
struck  out  from  that  centre  upon  so  many  and  such  widely 
diverging  lines,  and  are  represented  in  numerous  positions 
of  honor  and  influence, — when  one  thinks  of  the  hundreds 
of  men  whom,  in  a  period  of  sixty-one  years.  Union  Semi- 
nary has  sent  into  pulpits  from  Maine  to  California,  and 
from  Canada  to  the  Gulf,— into  teachers'  chairs  in  colleges 
and  theological  schools  and  academies,  into  mission  fields  in 
Asia,  Africa  and  America, — when  one  tries  in  vain  to  reckon 
the  rate  at  which  their  work  multiplies  itself  in  the  interest 
of   religion    and    morals,    of  learning   and    culture,    of  social 


504  ^^^    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

order  and  social  betterment — one  may  well  thank  God  for 
a  man  whom  He  has  inspired  and  empowered  to  open 
the  fountain-heads  of  these  streams,  and  count  the  man 
himself  blessed  in  having  been  the  agent  of  such  fruitful 
ministries. 

These  are  not  all.  It  would  be  pleasant  to  speak  of  his 
ministrations  to  the  orphan,  the  friendless  child,  and  to  the 
tiller  of  the  soil ;  but  there  is  not  time  for  these.  We 
give  the  honor  of  these  ministries  of  his  where  it  is  due; 
and  that  is  not  to  mere  natural  kindness  and  generosity. 

Conceding  the  most  that  can  be  claimed  for  his  posses- 
sion of  these  as  natural  traits,  the  natural  traits  were  eleva- 
ted, widened,  intensified  and  guided  by  the  spirit  of  that 
gospel  in  the  faith  of  which  he  lived  and  died.  What  he 
was  to  other  secular  institutions,  in  his  interest,  and  activity, 
and  efficiency,  he  was  to  the  church.  He  was,  if  I  am  not 
mistaken,  one  of  the  original  members  of  that  congregation 
so  notable  in  New  York  Presbyterianism,  the  congregation 
of  the  old  Mercer  street  Presbyterian  Church,  and  he  and 
his  family  were  among  those  who,  in  1862,  organized  the 
Church  of  the  Covenant.  His  means,  his  counsel,  his 
labors  were  freely  given  to  the  church.  He  was  an  efficient 
church  officer,  an  attentive,  reverent  and  appreciative  hearer, 
an  affectionate  and  faithful  friend  to  his  pastors.  The  gen- 
eral tone  of  his  religious  life  was  quiet  and  equable.  His 
faith  was  simple,  and  he  had  little  interest  in  theological 
subtleties.  He  was  sorely  chastened  in  the  school  of  afflic- 
tion, but  he  accepted  the  trials  without  murmuring,  and 
appropriated  and  bore  them  like  a  man  of  faith. 

He  was  remarkable  for  his  love  of  life.  He  lived  in 
readiness  for  death,  which  came  very  near  him  more  than 
once,  but  he  had  no  desire  to  die,  even  at  his  great  age. 
He  rejoi(!ed  in  living   almost   up   to   the   very  last,  and  to  a 


CHARLES  BUTLER,   LL.D.  505 

degree  which  one  rarely  sees  equalled  he  kept  himself  in 
touch  with  the  world  and  with  the  current  of  events. 

He  had  a  pride  in  appeaj;ing  at  his  post  in  the  different 
offices  which  he  held  ;  many  of  us  have  seen  him  in  his 
official  chair  when  most  other  men  with  his  years  and  weak- 
ness would  have  been  in  their  beds.  He  delighted  in  the 
society  of  his  friends,  and  in  dispensing  the  hospitalities  of 
his  pleasant  homes  in  the  city  and  at  Fox  Meadow. 

He  was  fond  of  books  and  of  works  of  art,  and  num- 
bered among  his  friends  and  guests  some  of  the  most 
eminent  literary  men  of  England.  He  was  always  the 
finished  gentleman,  not  of  mere  polish  of  manner,  but  in 
the  shining  of  a  genuine  kindliness  through  his  peaceful 
dignity,  and  his  fine  courtesy  was  noticeable  even  in  his 
intercourse  with  children.  Yet  with  all  his  suavity  and 
peace  and  real  heartiness,  he  was  positive  in  conviction, 
definite  in  opinion  and  tenacious  of  purpose,  and  a  deter- 
mined antagonist  when  his  convictions  were  assailed. 

One  of  the  sore  chastenings  in  the  school  of  afflic- 
tion, to  which  Professor  Vincent  alludes,  was  the  death 
of  Ogden,  his  only  son.  Ogden  was  a  graduate  of  the 
University,  very  dear  to  his  father,  and  full  of  promise. 
Chiefly  for  his  sake  the  splendid  domain  of  Fox 
Meadow  had  been  purchased ;  and  some  of  its  earliest 
improvements  were  planned  aftd  started  by  him.  How 
well  I  recall  the  June  morning  in  1856,  when,  m 
company  with  his  uncle  Franklin,  I  went  out  to  Fox 
Meadow  on  a  pastoral  visit  to  this  fine  young  man, 
then  on  his  death  bed.  Shortly  after  I  tried  to  com- 
fort the  stricken  parents  and  sisters  as  he  lay  upon  his 
bier  in  the  old  city  home  on  Fourteenth  street.     It  was 


606  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

a  very  touching  and  imj)ressive  scene  ;  for  in  the  large 
company  of  mourning  friends  were  William  C.  Bryant, 
Samuel  J.  Tilden  and  a  score  more  of  the  most  eminent 
citizens  of  New  York.  Even  from  beyond  the  sea 
came  tender  messages  of  sympathy.  Here  is  one  sent 
by  Thomas  Carlyle : 

Alas,  I  can  too  well  understand  what  a  blank  of  utter 
sorrow  and  desolation  that  sad  loss  must  have  loft  in  your 
household,  and  in  the  heart  of  everybody  there.  Your  one 
son,  and  such  a  son,  cut  off  in  the  flower  of  his  days  ;  so 
many  high  hopes  for  himself  and  others,  suddenly  abolished 
forever  !  It  is  hard  for  flesh  and  blood — and  yet  it  must 
be  borne ;  there  is  no  relief  from  this  ;  and  all  wisdom  of 
all  ages  bids  us  say,  "  good  is  the  will  of  the  Lord,"  though 
that  is  hard  to  do. 

You  do  well  not  to  slacken  in  your  labors :  to  keep 
doing  so  long  as  the  day  is,  the  duty  of  the  day.  I  know 
no  other  remedy  so  sure  of  ultimately  helping  in  all  sorrow 
whatsoever.  Let  us  work  while  it  is  called  to-day.  In  a 
very  little  while  we  too  shall  follow  into  the  silent  kingdom 
the  loved  ones  that  have  already  gone ;  and  one  divine 
eternity  will  hold  us  all  again,  as  God  may  have  appointed 
for  them  and  for  us.  I  will  say  no  more  on  this  sad  sub- 
ject; upon  which  you  feel  at  present  all  speech  to  be 
mostly  only  idle. 

V. 

LETTERS   FROM   MR.  FROUDE,  GOLDWTN  SMITH   AND 
THOMAS   CARLYLE. 

Mr.  Butler  went  abroad  repeatedly,  botli  on  business 
and  for  recreation  and  pleasure.     These  visits  to  the 


CHARLES  BUTLER,   LL.D.  507 

old  world  brought  him  into  close  acquaintance  not  only 
with  some  of  the  most  eminent  European  financiers 
and  capitalists  but  also  with  leaders  in  society  and 
literature  in  London  and  on  the  continent.  His 
acquaintance  with  Mr.  Carlyle  in  particular  ripened 
into  a  beautiful  and  lasting  friendship.  Their  corres- 
pondence with  each  other,  while  relating  to  business, 
related  also  to  higher  interests  and  was  full  of  expres- 
sions of  mutual  esteem  and  affection.  Mr.  Butler 
corresponded  also  with  other  noted  men  of  letters 
abroad,  who  had  enjoyed  his  hospitality  while  visiting 
this  country.  No  one  crossed  his  tlireshold  without  a 
restful  feeling.  His  hosj^itality,  indeed,  was  almost 
unique  in  its  heartiness  and  good  cheer.  Froude, 
Goldwin  Smith,  Charles  Kingsley,  Matthew  Arnold, 
Hon.  Lyidi^h  Stanley,  Mr.  Olyphant,  the  traveler, 
Prof.  Bruce  of  Scotland,  and  I  know  not  how  many 
others  all  joined  in  praising  it.  In  their  letters  to  him 
his  hospitality  is  constantly  referred  to.  Some  of  these 
letters  are  very  interesting  and  reflect  a  bright  light 
upon  his  own  character.  A  good  test,  indeed,  of  a 
man's  quality  is,  often-times,  the  sort  of  letters  written 
to  him  by  his  friends.  Certainly,  this  was  the  case 
with  Mr.  Butler.  A  number  of  letters  from  Mr, 
Froude  have  been  preserved.  I  will  give  some  passages, 
expressive  of  his  political  sentiments  and  of  his  regard 
for  the  American  friend  whom  he  esteemed  above  all 
others.  Here  is  the  larger  portion  of  a  letter  dated 
No.  5  Onslow  Gardens,  January  1,  1892: 


608  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

My  dear  Mr.  Butler  : 

This  is  the  first  letter  which  I  write  in  the  new  year, 
and  I  write  it  with  peculiar  pleasure  to  an  old  and  honored 
friend;  first  to  thank  you  for  the  pamphlets  Avhich  you 
have  so  kindly  sent  me,  and  then  to  wish  you  continued 
peace  and  happiness  in  this  fresh  period  on  which  we  are 
entering. 

As  to  the  pamphlets,  I  read  them  Avithout  the  enthu- 
siasm which  I  should  once  perhaps  have  felt.  The  discus- 
sions are  the  inevitable  consequences  of  the  eagerness  of  our 
forefathers  to  make  truth  truer  than  it  is,  but  I  have  lived 
long  enough  to  see  with  sadness  how  men  rush  along  a  new 
course,  imagining  they  can  fix  the  limit  to  which  they  will 
advance.  The  disintegration  of  an  old  established  belief  is 
always  demoralizing.  Religious  problems  are  insoluble  to 
the  reason.  The  questions  raised  have  no  bottom  either  for 
logic  or  speculation,  and  those  generations  are  happiest 
which  inherit  as  a  basis  for  morality  a  system  of  belief,  like 
a  system  of  laws  which  the  opinion  of  mankind  forbids  them 
to  take  to  pieces.  Such  systems  no  doubt  will  carry  traces 
in  them  of  the  imperfect  knowledge  of  the  age  in  which 
they  live.  But  a  conviction  of  any  kind  which  requires 
and  encourages  morality  and  submission  to  our  ]\Iaker  is  so 
infinitely  precious  in  itself,  so  hard  to  replace  when  broken 
up,  that  wise  men  will  bear  with  small  defects  sooner  than 
allow  it  to  be  disturbed.  In  the  sixteenth  century  Catholic 
Christianity  had  become  so  corrupt  and  deformed  that  the 
reformation  became  an  absolute  necessity.  It  cannot 
be  said  that  the  belief  in  the  infallibility  of  the  Bible  was 
doing  similar  harm,  even  if  it  is  a  pious  mistake.  I  know 
that  I  am  stumbling  over  the  root  of  a  tree  that  I  helped 
to  ]ilant ;  but  many  things  are  clear  to  me  now  Avhich  I 
could  not  see  forty-five  years  ago.      The  severe  piety  of  the 


CHARLES  BUTLER,   LL.D.  509 

early  Protestants  could  sweep  away  the  faults  and  preserve 
the  more  tenaciously  the  essential  principles  of  religion. 
But  the  temper  no  longer  exists.  Those  who  quarrel  with 
such  points  in  the  Bible  go  on  to  larger,  and  they  or  their 
followers  will  continue  till  they  reject  its  authority  alto- 
gether. The  hardy  and  consistent  go  on  to  Atheism.  The 
timid  fall  back  on  the  Roman  Church.  We  have  probably 
centuries  of  spiritual  anarchy  before  us  before  any  fresh  and 
really  pious  conviction  can   grow  up  again. 

You  Americans  are  young  and  confident ;  you  are  not 
burdened  with  sentimental  traditions.  You  are  starting 
fresh  and  may  meet  a  new  era,  but  the  character  of  it  I 
expect  will  be  something  very  unlike  what  broad  church- 
men aflPect  to  anticipate.  I  croak  like  an  old  man.  You 
are  an  old  man  too,  and  will  understand  me  if  you  do  not 
sympathize.  Anyway,  these  discussions  are  forced  upon  us 
and  will  not  now  be  checked  till  the  natural  issue  is  worked 
out.  It  had  to  be  and  now  it  is  come.  You  and  I  at 
any   rate  will  soon  be  out  of  it. 

Here  in  England;  and  indeed  in  all  Europe,  the  year  closes 
with  universal  uncertainty.  The  Great  Powers  are  armed 
to  the  teeth  and  any  accident  may  set  free  the  electricity. 
Our  own  general  election  will  be  postponed  if  the  govern- 
ment can  manage  it,  till  July,  but  it  may  easily  be  forced 
on  by  impatience  and  restlessness.  There  are  many  cross 
currents  under  the  surface.  I  conclude  myself  that  Glad- 
stone will  return  to  office,  and  will  try  to  carry  his  Home 
Rule.  Beyond  that  no  one  can  venture  a  prediction.  The 
majority  in  England  will  still  perhaps  be  against  him.  It 
will  be  awkward  and  perhaps  dangerous  if  England  is  to  be 
outvoted  by  Wales,  Ireland  and  Scotland.  The  Peers  will 
resist,  and  who  will  prophesy  what  then  may  follow !  .  .  . 
Prolonged  life  has  many  alleviations   which  when  young    we 


510  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

did  not  anticipate.  I  should  find  it  tolerable  and  even 
j)leasant  but  for  the  inseparable  condition  of  the  loss  of  our 
friends.  Most  of  my  own  old  companions  have  now  disap- 
peared. The  club  is  full  of  new  faces  which  I  do  not 
recognize.  One  forms  fresh  acquaintances,  but  cannot  form 
new  friendships ;  even  one's  own  family  shrink ;  some  dead, 
some  married.  But  the  foolish  anxieties  and  foolish  ambi- 
tions are  gone  also;  and  the  future  (in  this  world)  draws 
into  so  small  a  space  that  one  ceases  to  worry  oneself. 
Time  has  nothing  more  to  give.  There  is  not  much  which 
it  can  take  away ;  and  thus  there  is  a  degree  of  tranquility 
not  possible  in  earlier  years. 

My  Canada  fello^v  subjects  are  anxious  that  I  should  go  out 
next  summer  and  pay  them  a  visit.  If  I  do  go,  not  the  least 
of  the  temptations  will  be  the  charm  of  seeing  you  once  more. 

The  "pamphlets"  sent  to  him  by  Mr.  Butler  related, 
no  doubt,  to  the  fierce  controversy  about  revision  of  tlie 
Westminster  symbols  and  the  Higher  Criticism,  which 
was  then  in   full  blast.     On   January  13,   he  wrote  : 

A  few  days  ago  I  inflicted  an  unwarrantably  long  letter 
on  you  in  acknowledgment  of  those  theological  tracts.  We 
are  worried  here  by  the  same  controversies,  which  steal  into 
our  houses  and  disturb  the  peace.  .  .  .  You  say  nothing 
of  your  own  condition,  but  your  firm  and  vigorous  hand 
writing  seems  to  show  that  age  is  dealing  gently  with  you. 
May  a  life  so  useful  as  yours  be  long  continued.  For  my- 
self I  wish  only  to  last  as  long  as  I  can  work.  When  I 
can  do  no  more  I  shall  hope  for  my  promotion.  To  the 
change,  whatever  it  may  be,  I  can  look  with  increasing 
equanimity.  Yours  ever  gratefully  and  truly, 

J.    A.    FllOUDK. 


CHARLES  BUTLER,   LL.D.  g^ 

Here  is  another  characteristic  letter,  dated  Decem- 
ber 7,  1892  : 

My  Dear  Mr.  Butler  : 

When  the  cask  of  apples  arrived  yesterday  from  America 
it  set  me  speculating  which  of  my  kind  friends  thus  liad 
been  so  kindly  thinking  of  me.  Your  letter  tells  me  that 
I  owe  it  to  the  one  among  them  all  by  whom  it  is  most 
gratifying  to  me  to  be  remembered.  There  is  a  protracted 
enjoyment  of  such  a  gift  as  this  which  makes  the  giver 
continually  present.  All  this  pleasant  Christmas  season  we 
shall  have  you  constantly  before  our  minds  here.  But 
indeed  to  me  the  valuable  part  of  such  things  is  the  sense 
that  I  am  not  forgotten  by  those  whose  good  opinion  is 
precious  to  me.  Let  me  add  to  this,  that  I,  as  a  Devon- 
shire born  and  bred,  profess  to  be  a  judge  of  apples  and 
find  these  particularly  excellent. 

There  is  much  that  is  interesting  in  what  is  going  on  on 
both  sides  of  the  Atlantic.  You  have  had  your  Presiden- 
tial election  and  we  have  our  eternal  Irish  scandal.  We 
could  extinguish  it  all  with  a  stamp  of  the  foot,  and  I  sup- 
pose in  the  end  it  will  come  to  that.  But  our  own  record 
is  not  clear.  We  are  ashamed  of  our  past  neglect ;  we  are 
not  at  all  sure  that  we  should  do  any  better  if  we  had  it 
all  in  our  hands  again  to  do  as  we  pleased.  We  are 
paralyzed  by  party  government.  Whatever  one  side  pro- 
poses the  other  opposes;  and  so  we  go  on,  and  shall  go  on, 
making  ourselves  a  laughing  stock  to  Europe,  and  forfeiting 
influence  we  ought  to  be  exercising,  till  the  situation 
becomes  unbearable. 

My  two  short  books  about  the  colonies,  "Oceana,"  and 
"  The  Bow  of  Ulysses,"  have  been  a  good  deal  read,  and 
perhaps  have  had  some  influence.      But  as  far  as  our  West 


512  THE    UXION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

Indies  are  concerned,  I  should  be  heartily  glad  to  hear  that 
there  was  a  likelihood  of  your  taking  charge  of  them.  For 
I  see  no  other  hope  of  their  escaping  a  relapse  into  barbar- 
ism. When  I  plead  with  Cabinet  ministers  to  give  them 
an  eifective  government  they  tell  me  that  it  is  impossible 
in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  the  United  States. 
Americans  Avill  insist  on  their  having  her  Constitution  under 
which  the  black  multitude  must  rule.  In  vain  I  say  that 
there  are  probably  not  a  dozen  Americans  alive  who  care 
the  toss  of  a  sixpence  about  it,  and  that  those  who  do  care 
wish  only  to  see  the  islands  well  and  wisely  managed.  It 
is  all  in  vain.  Their  only  chance  lies  in  your  taking  them 
and  you  are  too  prudent  to  do  anything  of  the  sort. 

I  hope  I  may  see  you  again  in  this  world,  my  dear  Mr. 
Butler.  You  will  hardly  cross  the  Atlantic  again  yourself; 
but  I  always  feel  so  much  refreshed  by  a  stay  in  New  York 
(unless  I  catch  cold  as  I  did  the  last  time)  that  I  think  I 
shall  run  over  myself  when  I  can  find  leisure.  I  trust  it 
may  be  so,  and  when  I  do  I  shall  find  you  well  and  strong, 
and  enjoying  the  well-earned  rest  of  the  seventh  day  of 
your  life.      Till  then  believe  me, 

Warmly  and  gratefully  yours, 

J.  A.  Froude. 

Here  are  some  sentences  from  his  last  letter : 

Constitutional  Government  in  England  itself  is  at  stake. 
When  the  mass  of  our  people  are  made  to  see  that  the 
Liberal  policy  means  disintegration  of  the  Empire,  there 
will  be  a  wild  and  final,  and  probably  uncontrollable  reac- 
tion. The  Conservatives  are  no  wiser  than  their  antagonists. 
Carlyle  alone  in  my  opinion  really  understood  the  signs  of 
the  present  times. 


CHARLES  BUTLER,   LL.D.  513 

You  will  be  sorry  to  hear  that  my  dear  friend  John 
Ruskin  is  very  ill.  He  is  a  man  of  trne  i>;enius,  the  most 
gifted  perhaps  of  all  his  contemporaries.  He  started  in  life 
an  only  son,  heir  of  a  large  fortune  with  splendid  talents. 
At  twenty-five  he  had  made  a  European  reputation.  His 
life  has  been  spotlessly  pure.  He  has  been  generous  to  ex- 
cess, nobly  disinterested  in  thought  and  action.  Yet  few 
men  have  been  more  unhappy.  His  home  has  been  deso- 
late. He  has  instructed  and  delighted  millions ;  and  his 
own  portion  has  been  dust  and  ashes. 

But  I  must  not  end  in  this  melancholy  tone.  The  sun- 
light will  come  around  again,  and  the  good  seed  which  has 
been  sown  Avill  then  spring  up  and  make  itself  seen.  If  it 
is  dark  here,  there  is  light  yonder  in  the  American  Goshen. 
May  you  live  long  and  enjoy  it. 

Another  of  Mr.  Butler's  English  friends  and  cor- 
respondents, held  by  him  in  the  highest  esteem,  still 
survives ;  and  yet  I  cannot  help  giving  here  part  of  a 
letter,  in  which  he  expressed  his  feeling  about  our 
Civil  War  and  the  issues  and  interests  involved  in  it. 
I  refer  to  one  of  the  very  few  eminent  Englishmen, 
who  were  strong  champions  of  the  Union  in  that  awful 
struggle,  GoLDwiN  Smith.  The  letter  is  dated  Ox- 
ford, April  23,  1865  : 

I  need  hardly  tell  you  with  what  joy  the  tidings  of  these 
days  have  filled  the  hearts  of  all  friends  of  the  Union  and 
of  Freedom  here.  I  thank  God  for  this  great  deliverance 
of  humanity,  the  greatest  since  the  defeat  of  the  Armada. 
At  last,  after  four  years  of  agony,  it  is  decided  that  the  hopes 
of  man  shall  not  die  but  live. 


514  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

And  now,  the  Civil  War  is  over,  and  American  blood  will 
be  shed  by  American  hands  no  more.  I  should  often  have 
been  a  weak  counsellor,  if  it  had  been  my  part  to  say 
whether  the  carnage,  the  suffering  and  the  mourning  shall  go 
on.  May  the  wounds  of  your  nation  be  quickly  and  com- 
pletely healed  ;  may  it  now  enter  into  a  solid  and  enduring 
peace;  may  its  sacrifices  be  repaid  tenfold  by  the  prosperity 
of  the  opening  future — a  prosperity  pure  and  clear,  untainted 
by  complicity  with  evil,  darkened  by  no  shadow  of  impend- 
ing retribution. 

That  you  will  be  merciful  and  more  than  merciful  to  the 
vanquished — that  conquest  will  be  swallowed  up  -in  recon- 
ciliation— that  your  free  institutions  will  be  justified  before 
the  world  not  only  by  their  military  but  by  their  moral 
results. — I  know  not  only  from  the  language  of  your  people, 
which  I  am  sure  came  from  their  hearts,  but  from  their 
treatment  of  the  captured  enemies  whom  I  saw  in  their 
hands.  Your  rulers  in  the  midst  of  triumph,  speak  of  peace 
and  moderation ;  and  their  words  shake  the  old  stronghold 
of  Feudalism  here  more  than  the  thunder  of  victory. 

Already  England  begins  to  feel  the  effect  of  your  success. 
Already  the  Liberal  party,  half  dead  three  years  ago,  feels 
the  current  of  a  new  life  in  its  veins.  We,  as  well  as  you, 
shall  date  a  new  era  from  Gettysburg.  It  is  the  most 
glorious  and  beneficent  victory  ever  gained  in  war.  Only 
let  us  nor  forget,  while  we  thank  Divine  Goodness  for  it 
that  the  most  glorious  and  beneficent  victories  of  all  have 
been  won  not  in  that  but  in  peace.  A  long  train  of  such 
victories,  I  trust,  awaits  your  nation  now. 

Mr.  Butler's  correspondence  with  Carlyle  in  partic- 
ular is  altogether  charming.  It  were  not  easy  to 
decide  which  of  the  two  it  presents  in  the  most  attrac- 


CHARLES  BUTLER,   LL.D.  515 

tive  light,  the  sage  of  Chelsea  or  the  New  York  man 
of  business.  Mr.  Carlyle's  letters  are  very  character- 
istic of  him  in  some  of  his  strong  and  finest  points.  I 
cannot  resist  the  temptation  to  add  to  the  interest  of 
this  sketch  by  making  a  few  of  them  a  part  of  it.  The 
allusions  to  money  matters  tell  their  own  story  and 
need  no  comment. 

5  Cheyne  Row,  Chelsea,  London, 
Jaiumiy  17,  1854. 
My  Dear  Sir: 

Your  very  obliging  letter  came  in  due  course  of  post,  but 
except  a  silent  record  of  thanks  for  your  goodness,  I  was 
not  at  that  time  able  to  do  anything  with  it.  I  had  been 
called  into  Scotland  ;  my  dear  and  excellent  old  mother  was 
passing  away  from  me  by  the  road  we  have  all  to  go : — 
that  vuiforgetable  event  took  place  on  Christmas  day ;  and 
ever  since,  there  as  here,  I  have  been  occupied  as  you  may 
fancy.  It  was  not  till  yesterday  that  I  could  get  a  proper 
copy  of  the  Illinois  bond  ;  and  to-day  I  hasten  to  send  you 
the  original,  that  you  may  dispose  of  it  for  me,  according  to 
your  kind  purposes,  in  the  way  you  judge  most  advantageous. 

The  copy,  so  far  as  I  can  examine,  is  exact  to  the  origi- 
nal now  sent:  Bond  for  |1,000.  State  of  Illinois,  No.  324 
with  thirty-warrants  of  interest  of  $30  each,  attached  to  it, 
the  first  dated  July,  1843,  the  last,  July,  1860,  by  means  of 
which,  I  suppose,  the  original  could  be  replaced,  should  any 
accident  happen  to  it. 

As  to  management  of  the  affair,  I  have  only  to  say  that 
the  money  is  not  at  all  wanted  here  at  present ;  and  that  I 
will  leave  the  matter  wholly  to  your  skill  and  friendliness, 
well  aware  that  there  can  be  no  course  nearly  so  good  for 
me  and  it.     Had  I  once  got  notice  from  you  that   the    bond 


516  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

has  arrived  safe,  I  shall  dismiss  it  from  the  list  of  my  anx- 
ieties, and  wait  with  very  great  composure  indeed  for  what 
issue  you  Avill  educe  from  it.      So  enough  on  that  subject. 

Miss  B  has  gone  away  from  us — soon  after  you  went — to 
St.  Albans,  the  great  Chancellor  Bacon's  place  :  there  we  sup- 
pose her  to  be  elaborating  the  Shakspeare  discovery !  but 
have  heard  almost  nothing  since,  and  have  seen  absolutely 
nothing.  The  painter  whom  my  wife  spoke  of  has  at  length, 
I  believe,  actually  got  to  sea,  and  will  probably  be  in  New 
York  the  week  before  this  arrives :  he  has  a  note  to  Miss 
Lynch  and  you  from  my  wife ;  and  as  he  is  both  a  really 
superior  artist,  and  a  very  honest,  modest,  kindly  and  inter- 
esting man,  we  doubt  not  you  will  be  good  to  him  as 
opportunity  offers.  A  lively  remembrance  of  that  pleasant 
evening  survives  here,  too;  it  is  not  always  that  one  falls 
in  with  human  figures  of  that  kind  either  from  our  side  of 
the  water  or  from  yours  !  I  beg  many  kind  and  respectful 
regards  to  Miss  Lynch,  whom  I  shall  long  remember. 

And  so  adieu  for  this  time, 

Yours  sincerely, 

T.  Caei.yle. 

Chelsea,  London,  3rd  March,  1854. 
My  Dear  Sir: 

A  week  ago  I  received  your  kind  and  })leasant  letter, 
intimating  to  me,  among  other  welcome  things,  that  you 
had  received  the  Illinois  Bond  safe,  and  would,  as  your 
beneficent  purpose  had  been,  take  charge  of  it  in  due  busi- 
ness form,  which  is  all  right  and  a  real  favor  done  me; 
which  in  fact,  as  it  were,  absolves  my  lazy  mind  from  any 
farther  thought  or  trouble  about  that  matter ;  tliere  being 
evidently  nothing  half  so  good  I  could  have  done  with  it, 
and  therefore   in   the   meanwhile,   nothing    further   whatever 


CHARLES  BUTLER,    LL.D.  SlV 

that  I  have  to  do  with  it.  With  many  sincere  thanks,  let 
it  so  stand  therefore !  I  have  only  to  add  that  the  3 
coupons  you  inquire  about  are  quite  gone  beyond  my  reach 
or  inquiry.  I  suppose  them  to  have  been  given  off  for  3 
installments  of  interest,  which  were,  (as  I  can  remember) 
paid  to  me  in  regular  succession,  long  years  ago,  when  a 
worthy  friend,  a  merchant  in  the  city,  now  deceased,  had 
charge  of  the  Bond  for  me ;  if  that  was  not  their  fate,  I 
cannot  form  a  guess  about  it ;  but  in  any  case,  they  are  to 
be  held,  these  3  coupons,  as  extinct  for  us,  and  finally 
gone.  And  this  is  now  all  I  have  to  say  upon  the  Illinois 
Bond.  Requesting  you  only  not  to  bother  yourself  with  it, 
beyond  what  comes  quite  in  your  way  in  the  current  of  far 
wider  operations,  I  will  leave  that  rather  memorable  Docu- 
ment now  at  length  well  lodged  in  your  repositories,  and 
dismiss  it  again  quite  into  the  background  of  my  own 
rememberances. 

We  are  struck  with  a  glad  surprise  to  hear  you  have 
been  so  supremely  hospitable  to  our  voyaging  painter.  To 
snatch  him,  the  thin-skinned,  sea-worn  man,  from  the  horrors 
of  a  stranger  hotel  or  boarding-house,  and  bid  him  come 
and  rest  in  safety,  under  soft  covers  and  protection,  in  the 
house  of  a  human  friend ;  this  is  indeed  a  high  and  fine 
procedure  ;  but  it  is  far  beyond  what  is  demanded  or  ex- 
pected in  these  later  unheroic  ages !  I  can  only  say  we 
find  a  beautifnl  "  politeness  of  the  old  school  "  in  all  this, 
and  in  the  way  all  this  is  spoken  of  and  done  ;  and  do  very 
much  thank  Miss  Lynch  and  yourself  for  all  your  kind- 
nesses ;  and  shall  (if  we  be  wise)  silently  regard  the 
existence  of  such  a  temper  of  mind,  thousands  of  miles 
away  from  us,  as  a  real  possession  in  this  world. 

Miss  B.  sends  no  sign  whatever  from  St.  Albans  ;  we 
suppose    her    to    be,    day    and     night,    strenuously    wrestling 


518  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

down  in  her  own  peculiar  way,  that  monstrous  problem  she 
has  got;  poor  lady,  I  really  wish  I  heard  of  her  safe  home 
again,  and  well  out  of  it,  on  any  terms.  Your  Minister 
here  has  done  a  notable  thing  the  other  day :  entertained, 
or  rather  been  partner  while  the  Consul  entertained,)  the 
6  or  5  select  pearls  of  European  Revolutionism,  Kossuth, 
Ledru-Rollin,  Mazzini,  Garibaldi,  etc.,  I  do  believe  the 
most  condensed  Elixir  of  modern  Anarchy  that  could  have 
well  been  got  together  round  any  earthly  dinner  table,  wliich 
has  caused  a  preceptible  degree  of  laughter,  commentary  and 
censure  in  certain  circles ;  now  pretty  much  fallen  silent  again. 
Undoubtedly  a  diplomatic  mistake  (in  a  small  way)  on  the 
part  of  Mr.  B.;  which,  however,  it  is  expected  he  will  amply 
redeem  by  and  by. 

Adieu  my  dear  sir ;  with  many  kind  regards,  from  both  of 
us,  to  both  of  you,  I  remain, 

Yours  always  truly, 

T.  Carlyle. 

Chelsea,  London,  May  28,  1854. 
My  Dear  Sir: 

It  must  be  at  once  admitted,  and  ought  to  be  always 
gratefully  remembered,  you  have  stood  a  real  father  to  that 
poor  down-broken  bond ;  and  have  set  it  up  triumphantly, 
with  victorious  kindness,  on  such  a  footing  as  it  never  had 
before !  I  think  (so  far  as  vague  recollection  serves),  it  bears 
now  almost  the  value,  and  yields  about  twice  the  interest 
that  was  originally  attached  to  it,  which  is  a  result  valuable 
to  me,  in  more  ways  than  one.  The  money  is  worth  some- 
thing in  this  ever-hungry  world  ;  and  as  to  the  transaction 
which  the  money  now  comes  from,  that  is  one  with  a  value 
in  it  higher,  probably,  than  any  money.  I  may  long  recol- 
lect that  pleasant  brief  evening,  and  the  chivalrous  proce- 
dure that  has  arisen  out  of  it. 


CHARLES  BUTLER,   LL.D.  519 

By  all  means,  leave  the  document  where  it  is,  if  you  will 
still  be  so  kind  as  to  trouble  yourself  with  the  keeping  of 
it.  If  you  continue  to  think  the  investment  safe,  I  may  send 
you  some  more  in  the  course  of  years  ;  the  interest,  in  August 
or  any  time,  will  find  uses  for  itself  here.  And  so,  with 
many  thanks,  let  the  matter  lie  arranged. 

We  are  in  our  usual  state  here,  little  different  from  what 
you  saw,  except  that  I  am  dreadfully  overwhelmed  this  long 
while  with  an  ill-fated  Prussian  enterprise  in  the  Book  way, 
the  ugliest  I  ever  undertook,  and  the  most  thankless  and 
hopeless,  in  which,  except  the  unwillingness  to  be  flatly 
beaten  in  one's  old  days,  there  is  no  adequate  motive  to  per- 
severe. This  is  really  a  sore  job,  and  I  have  often  fallen 
nearly  desperate  upon  it.  One  needs  "  the  obstinacy  of  ten 
mules,"  as  I  sometimes  say,  "  in  this  world."  However,  I 
now  do  begin,  in  cheerful  moments,  to  see  promises  of  day- 
light here  and  there  through  the  abominable  black  dust- 
whirlwind  where  my  dwelling  has  so  long  been;  and  expect 
to  get  out  of  it  alive  after  all,  doing  a  bad  Book,  the  best  I 
can,  since  a  good  one  is  not  possible  in  the  case. 

Of  Miss  B.,  I  am  sorry  to  report  that  I  know  absolutely 
nothing  for  many  months  past,  perhaps  above  a  year,  when 
she  made  her  last  visit  here,  and  promised  to  come  back 
soon,  but  never  came.  She  lives  about  four  miles  from  us 
(in  a  street  leading  off  Hyde  Park  Gardens,  towards  the 
Paddington  region,  at  least  there  she  did  live,  when  1  called 
long  since  and  found  her  gone  out).  I  am  so  held  to  the 
grinding-stone,  I  never,  by  any  chance,  get  away  to  such  dis- 
tances, and  indeed,  hardly  make  visits  at  all,  this  long  while. 
I  have  often  asked  myself,  and  ask  all  American  friends, 
what  poor  Miss  B.  is  about?  but  nobody  knew  her,  nobody 
can  tell.  Her  very  address  I  have  now  lost;  could  find  the 
place,  I  think,  from  the   physiognomy  of  the   street,  were    I 


520  'THE   UNION  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

there  in  person,  and  from  some  recollections  of  "  twelve  "  as 
being  the  number  of  the  house.  Poor  lady !  I  fear  she  is  in 
a  very  abstruse  condition  ;  engaged  in  an  enterprise  which  is 
totally  without  rational  basis,  and  getting  more  and  more 
exasperated  that  she  does  not  (as  she  cannot  by  possibility) 
succeed  in  it. 

Laurence  need  not  write  to  me  'till  his  demon  fairly  bids 
him ;  I  am  satisfied  to  hear  of  his  prospering  so  among  you ; 
for  which,  I  doubt  not,  the  good,  meritorious  man  is  thank- 
ful. Such  "  hospitality " — I  have  often  thought  of  it  with 
loyal  wonder;  it  is  like  the  hospitality  of  the  heroic  ages, 
and  rebukes  common  mankind  of  our  day  ! 

My  wife  joins  with  me  in  kind  regards  to  Miss  Lynch 
(among  others  of  the  Chelsea  party  of  that  evening)  whom 
I  very  well  remember,  and  still  like.  My  notion  is  the  Sar- 
dinian professor  may  have  done  an  extremely  wise  thing,  in 
staying  where  he  was  on  those  terms.  Easily  go  farther  and 
fare  worse. 

What  a  narrow  providential  miss  of  the  uttermost  calamity 
was  that  of  you  and  yours.  * 

We  do  well  to  recognise  such  things  as  mercies  of  a  Spe- 
cial Power  that  has  pity  on  us.  Great  pity  withal  is  shown 
us  in  this  universe,  where  so  much  rage  and  cruelty  also 
are — the  soil  of  it  only  getting  arable  by  little  and  little. 
Accept  our  united  regards.     I  remain  always, 

Yours  sincerely, 
(Signed)  T.  Carlyle. 

The  last  letter  of  Mr.  Carlyle  in  reganl  to  matters 


*They  had  taken  passage  on  the  ill-fated  Arctic  and,  at  the  last  mo- 
ment, were  led  hy  an  unexpected  incident  to  give  up  their  staterooms  and 
await  the  next  steamer. 


CHARLES  BUTLER,    LL.D.  521 

of  business  was  preceded    by    one    from    bis   brotber 
Jobn.     I  give  tbem  botb  : 

5  Cheyne  Row,  Chelsea,  May  G,  1868. 
My  Dear  Sir  : 

Last  week  before  leaving  Dumfries  I  wrote  to  you,  ac- 
knowledging receipt  of  your  letter  of  the  fourteenth  of  April, 
with  notarial  packages  of  eighteen  bonds,  for  one  thousand 
dollars  each  which  up  to  that  date  you  had  purchased  for 
Thomas  Carlyle,  my  brother.  These  bonds  are  now  lodged 
in  his  name  at  Dumfries  in  the  British  Linen  Company's 
Bank.  And  since  my  arrival  here  I  have  got  your  second 
letter  of  April  twenty-first,  with  notarial  certificate  (copy)  of 
statement  of  account  up  to  that  time,  and  bill  for  £34,  8s.  6p. 
which  balances  it  finally  and  which  I  have  had  paid  to  my 
brother's  London  banker.  The  statement  is  quite  clear  to 
me  and  corresponds  with  all  earlier  ones.  I  enclose  that  of 
August,  1865  (4),  signed  by  you  and  declaring  what  bonds 
you  had  in  trust  at  that  time ;  and  if  there  be  any  later 
declaration  of  the  sort  at  Dumfries,  I  will  have  it  cancelled 
at  once. 

I  need  hardly  say  that  my  brother  feels  extremely  obliged 
for  all  your  kindness  and  work  on  his  behalf  through  so 
long  a  series  of  years.  I  find  him  looking  at  least  as  well 
as  last  year,  and  he  is  occupied  at  present  in  preparing  for 
a  new  library  edition  of  all  his  works.  It  will  be  a  useful 
and  not  too  severe  occupation  for  him  in  the  coming  month. 
He  may,  perhaps,  add  a  post-script  to  this,  though  to-day  he 
is  entangled  with  preliminaries  for  settling  with  printers  as 
to  the  forms  of  that  edition. 

I  remain, 

Most  sincerely  yours, 

J.  A.  Carlyle. 


522  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

Chelsea,  May  6,  1868. 
Dear  Sir  : 

I  cannot  let  my  brother  despatch  this  final  docnment, 
and  altogether  satisfactory  closure  of  the  aifairs,  there  have 
been  between  us,  without  testifying  in  my  own  words  what 
a  pleasant  and  grateful  feeling  I  have  now,  and  all  along 
have  had,  for  the  whole  of  your  conduct,  from  first  to  last, 
in  regard  to  all  that.  I  was  a  stranger,  and  I  felt  that  you 
took  me  up  as  a  friend ;  and,  sure  enough,  you  have  through- 
out acted  conspiciously  in  that  character ;  caring  for  my  in- 
terests with  a  constant  loyalty,  sagacity  and  punctuality,  as 
if  they  had  been  your  own ;  manifesting  at  all  times  the 
qualities  of  a  perfect  man  of  business,  and  of  an  altogether 
singularly  generous,  faithful  and  courteous  benefactor: — in 
short,  making  good  nobly,  in  all  points,  the  reading  we  took 
of  you  here,  that  evening,  long  years  ago,  when,  alas,  it  was 
still  "we,"  not  as  now  only  one,  who  could  recognize  good 
men  and  love  them  ! 

Words  of  thanks  are  of  little  use,  but  it  is  certain  I  shall 
all  my  days  remember  you  with  gratitude,  with  honest  satis- 
faction, and  even  a  kind  of  pride,  which  will  or  may,  whether 
talked  of  or  not,  be  a  real  possession  to  us  both.  I  do  not 
yet  renounce  the  hope  of  seeing  you  again  this  side  the  sea. 
Meanwhile,  I  enclose  (by  same  mail)  a  little  bundle  of  new 
photograpJis,  which  may  gain  a  few  glances  from  your  lady- 
kind  on  an  evening,  and  occasionally  bring  me  to  mind. 
May  all  good  be  with  you  and  yours,  dear  sir.  I  remain 
yours  with  lasting  esteem  and  good  will, 

T.  Carlyle. 

The    reader    may    like   to   see   the  original   letter.. 
Here  is  a  fuesiniile  of  it : 


-  "^^^^^  '^^  X^l^^-^'  '^-w^l^'*:'*^  '^"^"^^{j^A^  ^^ 


V*v5-i  <^  \X<^  ^Li^  ^j^^     Ali((^  c*^ .  ^x  cV^ 


CHARLES  BUTLER,   LL.D.  525 

VI. 

HIS  HOME. DEATH  OF  HIS  YOUNGEST  DAUGHTER  AND  OF 

MRS.     BUTLER. HIS     LAST    YEARS. FOX-MEADOW. 

A    PICTURE   OF    HIM     THERE    AS     DRAWN     BY     AN 

OLD  FRIEND. TRIBUTE  OF  THE  BOARD  OF  DIREC- 
TORS AND  FACULTY  OF  THE  UNION  THEOLOGICAL 
SEMINARY. 

Mr.  Butler's  home,  both  to  its  own  members  and  to 
the  stranger  within  his  gates,  was  full  of  light  and 
sweetness.  All  who  were  privileged  to  sojourn  under 
his  roof,  whether  for  days,  or  for  weeks  and  months, 
felt  and  said  so.  In  the  letters  from  Detroit  and 
Indianapolis,  written  late  at  night,  under  the  pressure 
of  distracting  cares  and  responsibility,  one  gets  constant 
glimpses  of  the  ever-thoughtful,  devoted  husband  and 
father.  And  in  the  whole  tone  and  character  of  these 
same  letters,  I  may  add,  one  gets  glimpses  also  of  the 
Christian  wife  and  mother  not  less  striking  and  attrac- 
tive. The  only  son  passed  away  in  1856,  a  score  of 
years  later  followed  the  youngest  daughter,  and  shortly 
after  the  mother  herself;  but  the  elder  daughter  was 
still  spared  to  be  her  father's  companion,  staff  and 
comforter  during  the  rest  of  his  long  pilgrimage.  A 
large  circle  also  of  loving  nephews  and  nieces  with 
their  children  and  children's  children  grew  up  about 
him  and  helped  to  cheer  his  old  age.  When  they  all 
came  together  to  celebrate  one  of  "  Uncle  Charles'  " 
birthdays,  after  he  had  passed  into  the  nineties,  and 


526  THE    UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

the  time  of  his  departure  drew  near,  the  sight  was 
most  pleasing  and  beautifuL  Of  Mr.  Butler's  hospital- 
ity I  have  spoken  already.  In  the  later  years  of  his 
life  a  visit  in  the  summer  or  fall  to  Fox  Meadow  was 
a  special  benediction.  It  was  as  if  you  were  holding 
converse  with  one  of  the  patriarchs  sitting  at  the 
door  of  his  tent  and  rehearsing  the  wonderful  works 
of  the  Lord.  How  many  delightful  memories  are 
associated  with  that  summer  home,  its  green  meadows, 
its  walks  and  drives  through  the  fine  old  forest  trees 
and  along  the  rippling  brooks ! 

Here  is  a  pen  picture  of  the  scene,  the  place  and 
the  man  so  truthful  that  I  cannot  help  giving  it  as  a 
fitting  close  of  this  sketch.  It  was  written  by  Col. 
William  E.  McLean,  of  Terre  Haute,  Indiana,  some 
two  years  before  the  death  of  Mr.  Butler : 

Many  of  our  older  citizens  will  be  pleased  to  learn  that 
Mr.  Charles  Butler,  the  kind  and  courtly  okl  gentleman, 
who,  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago,  used  to  pay  his 
semi-annual  visits  to  Terre  Haute,  in  discharge  of  his  duties 
as  chairman  of  the  board  of  trustees  of  the  Wabash  and 
Erie  canal,  is  still  living,  in  quiet  and  dignified  retirement, 
at  his  princely  country  residence,  near  the  Hudson,  some 
sixteen  miles  above  New  York,  During  a  recent  visit  East, 
the  writer  called  upon  him,  was  most  pleasantly  received, 
and  delightfully  entertained  as  a  citizen  of  Terre  Haute. 

Mr.  Butler  remembered  with  lively  interest  our  earlier 
citizenship,  many  of  whose  acquaintance  he  made  more  than 
fifty  years  ago.  He  recalled  the  fact  that  all  the  men  most 
intimately    associated    with    him    in    the    enterprise    of    the 


CHARLES  BUTLER,    LL.D.  527" 

construction  and  management  of  that  great  work  have  gone 
to  their  final  reward.  Colonel  Thomas  H.  Blake,  Colonel 
Thomas  Dowling,  Jessie  L.  Williams,  of  Ft.  Wayne,  William 
J.  Ball,  Jacob  H.  Hager  and  others.  He  inquired  very 
jileasantly  of  Colonel  Thompson,  Mr.  McKeen,  Harry  Ross, 
the  family  of  his  old  friend  William  J.  Ball  whom  he 
esteemed  most  highly,  and  many  others,  surprising  me  by 
the  accuracy  of  his  memory  and  the  interest  he  still  takes 
in  his  old  acquaintance  of  the  Wabash.  The  day  following 
he  did  me  the  honor  to  call  at  a  neighbor's — a  gentleman 
who  was  formerly  a  prominent  young  citizen  of  this  city, 
whom  I  was  visiting- — and  presented  me  with  his  photograph, 
a  striking  likeness,  upon  the  reverse  side  of  which  he  had 
written,  in  clear  and  excellent  hand,  betraying  no  sign  of 
age,  "  With  regards  of  Mr.  Charles  Butler,  Fox  Meadow, 
June  15,  1895."  Upon  the  face  of  the  photograph,  which 
would  be  easily  recognized  by  any  of  his  former  acquaintances, 
he  had  written  "Charles  Butler,  February  15,  1895.  Born 
February  15,  1802."  Although  past  his  93d  year,  Mr. 
Butler  is  exceedingly  well  preserved  for  his  years,  enjoys 
greatly  the  society  of  his  friends,  and,  in  every  respect,  is  a 
typical  and  cultured  gentleman  of  the  old  school,  one  wlio 
has  eminently  known  how  to  grow  old,  demonstrating  the 
truth  of  the  proverb  that  no  old  age  is  agreeable  but  that  of 
a  wise  man. 

He  was  surprised  to  be  informed  that  Terre  Haute  now 
boasts  a  population  of  more  than  40^000,  and  recalled  his 
early  visits  to  our  straggling  little  settlement  as  it  existed 
in  the  days  of  the  tallow  dip  and  the  lumbering  old  stage 
coach,  when  it  required  two  long  weary  weeks  to  make  the 
trip  from  New  York  to  the  primitive  hamlet  on  the  Wabash. 

Although  never  a  citizen  of  Indiana,  no  man  played  a 
more  important   part  in    its  early  financial    history  than   did 


528  ^-^^    UNION  THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

Mr.  Charles  Butler.  A  gentleman  of  the  highest  character 
for  business  ability  and  integrity,  recognized  as  such  both  in 
Europe  and  this  country,  he  became  the  American  represent- 
ative of  the  foreign  holders  of  our  bonds — the  agent  of 
Indiana's  early  creditors  from  1840  to  the  final  settlement 
of  the  aifairs  of  the  old  Wabash  and  Erie  canal.  He 
discharged  the  duties  of  that  great  trust,  difficult  and  delicate 
as  they  were,  in  a  manner  satisfactory  to  his  principals  and 
in  a  way  that  should  have  won  him  the  everlasting  gratitude 
of  the  people  of  Indiana.  No  one  not  gifted  with  the  ken 
of  prophecy,  could  have  predicted  that  the  construction  of 
the  canal  would  so  soon  be  rendered  practically  worthless 
by  the  great  railroad  systems  which  were  to  spring  into  life 
almost  before  the  last  shovel  of  dirt  was  thrown  upon  its 
banks.  Mr.  Butler  secured  the  passage  after  much  labor 
and  serious  opposition,  by  the  legislature  of  1846,  of  the 
so-called  "  Butler  Bill,"  by  the  provisions  of  which  measure 
the  State  surrendered  to  her  bond-holders  all  her  interest  in 
the  canal,  then  unfinished  and  uncompleted,  in  consideration 
of  the  cancellation  of  several  millions  of  her  bonds,  thus 
lifting  from  the  shoulders  of  our  people  a  load  of  indebtedness 
which,  at  that  time  they  had  found  too  great  to  bear.  The 
"  Butler  Bill "  preserved  the  credit  and  character  of  the 
State  unimpared.  In  the  end  it  proved  a  splendid  contract 
for  the  State,  but  a  hard  one  for  the  creditors.  No  human 
foresight  could  have  predicted  that  the  canal  would  go  so 
quickly  into  "innocuous  desuetude."  The  condition  of  the 
State  at  the  time  of  the  passage  of  the  "  Butler  Bill  "  was 
truly  critical.  There  had  been  borrowed  by  the  State  for 
internal  improvement  purposes,  including  the  auKnint  expended 
in  the  practical  construction  of  the  Wabash  and  Erie  canal, 
more  than  $4,000,000,  upon  which  the  State,  then  a  mere 
frontier     State,    with     all     her    grand     resources    not     only 


CHARLES  BUTLER,   LL.D.  529 

undeveloped  and  unavailable,  but  really  not  dreamed  of,  was 
paying  an  unusual  interest  of  5  per  cent.,  which  of  itself 
was  an  unbearable  burden.  Governor  Wallace,  in  a  message 
to  the  legislature  some  years  before  the  passage  of  the 
"Butler  Bill,"  in  describing  the  financial  condition  then 
existing  in  the  State,  said :  "  The  truth  is,  and  it  would  be 
folly  to  conceal  it,  we  have  our  hands  full,  full  to  over- 
flowing, to  sustain  ourselves,  to  preserve  the  credit  and 
character  of  the  State,  we  have  not  an  hour  of  time,  nor 
a  dollar  of  money,  nor  a  hand  employed  in  labor  to 
squander  and  dissipate  upon  objects  of  idleness,  or  taste  or 
amusement." 

Mr.  Butler  talks  entertainingly  of  Indiana's  prominent 
law-makers  and  politicians  who  figured  in  the  old  days  of 
1846.  Governor  Whitcomb,  Oliver  H.  Smith,  Caleb  B. 
Smith,  Colonel  Thompson,  Joseph  J.  Jernegan,  Mr.  James 
Farregan  and  others.  Men  of  that  marked  individuality  of 
character  which  stamped  their  impress  upon  our  early  legisla- 
tion. To-day  one  of  New  York's  best  known  piiilanthropists, 
his  life  redolent  with  good  deeds,  entrenched  in  old  and 
congenial  friendships,  respected  and  honored  by  all  who 
know  him,  he  is  still  treading,  with  confident  and  cheerful 
steps,  the  brightening  paths  of  duty.  His  friends,  those  who 
know  him  best,  will  bear  testimony,  that  were  every  soul  as 
free  from  guile  as  his  has  been,  the  world  would  be  fairer 
to  live  in  and  heaven  more  easily  attained. 

The  following  minute,  prej^ared  by  President  Hast- 
ings, expresses  the  sentiment  with  which  the  Faculty 
and  Board  of  Directors  of  the  Union  Theological  Semi- 
nary regarded  the  departure  to  the  "  better  country  " 
of  this  eminently  wise  and  good  man  : 


530  THE   UNION   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 

MINUTE   OF    THE    DIRECTORY    OF   UNIOX    THEOLOGICAL   SEMI- 
NARY   IN   REGARD   TO   CHARLES    BUTLER,    LL.D. 

With  sad  liearts  we  record  the  death  of  the  venerable 
and  beloved  President  of  this  Board,  Charles  Butler,  LL.D., 
who  Avas  taken  from  us  on  the  morning  of  December  13, 
1897.  This  event  makes  an  epoch  of  the  sixty-second  year 
in  the  history  of  our  Seminary,  for  Mr.  Butler  was  the  last 
of  the  twenty-four  "Founders,"  who  in  1836  constituted 
the  first  Board  of  Directors.  Now  all  the  names  of  the 
Founders  are  among  the  starred,  and  yet  they  shall  ever  be 
cherished  here  with  veneration  and  affection  by  those  who 
guard  well  this  institution  as  the  great  monument  to  their 
memory. 

We  had  hoped  that  our  friend  might  live  to  celebrate 
his  ninety-sixth  birthday  on  the  15th  of  February,  but  that 
was  not  to  be.  During  the  first  thirty-four  years  of  our 
history  this  board  had  four  Presidents,  the  Eev.  Thomas 
McAuley,  D.D.,  LL.D.;  Eichard  Townley  Haines ;  the  Rev. 
Samuel  Hanson  Cox,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  and  Richard  Townley 
Haines.  In  1870  Mr.  Butler  was  elected  to  this  responsible 
position,  which  he  has  filled  for  twenty-seven  years  with  so 
much  wisdom  and  grace.  We  are  devoutly  grateful  for  the 
length  of  his  service,  but  still  more  grateful  for  the  character 
and  quality  of  his  service.  He  had  rare  sagacity,  poise  and 
balance,  with  inimitable  grace  and  dignity  as  a  presiding 
officer.  His  commanding  presence  was  also  and  always  an 
attractive  presence.  His  fine  countenance  lighted  by  his 
beautiful  faith  and  love,  wore  a  peculiar  radiance  which  was 
at  once  a  doxology  and  a  benediction.  We  loved  him  as 
much  as  we  revered  him.  His  mind  and  heart  was  full  of 
the  liveliest  interest  in  all  that  pertained  to  the  life  and 
growth  of  this  institution,  to  which  he  gave  most  liberally 
of  his  time  and  strength  and  means.     He  generously  endowed 


CHARLES  BUTLER,    LL.D.  53I 

the  Edward  Robinson  Professorship  of  Biblical  Theology 
intending  it  to  be  a  monument  to  his  honored  friend  whose 
name  it  bears,  but  it  will  be  his  own  monument  also. 

It  was  wonderful  in  his  old  age  to  see  how  clear  and 
how  comprehensive  his  mind  continued  to  be  even  unto  the 
last.  During  the  recent  serious  and  protracted  controversy 
growing  out  of  our  relation  to  the  General  Assembly,  the 
finest  qualities  of  Mr.  Butler's  character  were  conspicuously 
revealed.  In  all  the  trying  conferences  with  the  General 
Assembly's  Committee  he  commanded  in  a  marked  degree 
the  respect  and  admiration  of  the  members  of  that  Committee 
by  the  dignity,  calmness  and  graciousness  with  which  he 
presided  over  the  protracted  deliberations.  In  him  with  a 
noble  courage  and  an  unflinching  resolution  there  were 
combined  such  gentleness  and  courtesy  as  to  command  the 
reverence  even  of  those  who  differed  most  with  him.  His 
serene  and  charming  spirit  thus  rendered  admirable  service 
to  this  board  throughout  the  period  of  its  severest  trial. 

But  no  words  of  ours  can  do  justice  to  our  appreciation 
of  the  personality,  the  character,  and  the  service  of  our 
departed  friend.  His  memory  for  many  years  to  come,  will 
be  fragrant  to  the  members  of  this  Board,  to  the  Faculty 
and  to  the  Alumni,  so  many  of  whom  have  known  him  in 
the  refined  and  generous  hospitalities  of  his  home. 

We  give  him  joy  that  he  has  entered  the  gates  of  the 
Eternal  City,  where  he  has  been  welcomed  to  the  blessed 
fellowship  of  many  who  had  loved  him  here  and  who  have 
long  watched  and  waited  for  him  there. 

In  concluding  this  tribute  of  reverent  affection  we  desire 
to  express  our  deep  gratitude  and  our  profound  sympatliy  to 
his  noble  daughter  who  has  ministered  with  such  tender  and 
beautiful  devotion  to  her  father  and  our  friend. 


APPENDIX.  533 


Hppenbix. 


THE   ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE   EDWARD   ROBINSON    CHAIR    OF 
BIBLICAL  THEOLOGY. 


At  the  regular  meeting  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the 
Union  Theological  Seminary  in  the  city  of  New  York,  held 
November  11,  1890,  the  following  preamble  and  resolution 
were  adopted  by  a  unanimous  vote : 

Whereas,  The  Honorable  Charles  Butler,  LL.D.,  president  of  the 
Board  of  Directors  of  this  seminary,  has  made  provision  for  a  permanent  fund 
for  the  purpose  of  establishing  and  endowing  a  chair  in  this  seminary,  to  be 
called  the  Edward  Robinson  Chair  of  Biblical  Theology  : 

Now  THEREFORE,  Resolved,  That  a  new  professorship  shall  be  and  is 
hereby  created,  which  shall  be  called  the  "  Edward  Robinson  Chair  of  Bibli- 
cal Theology"  ;  that  the  income  of  the  endowment  of  one  hundred  thousand 
dollars  given  to  this  seminary  by  the  said  Charles  Butler  in  the  manner  men- 
tioned in  his  bond,  dated  April  15,  1890,  shall  be  applied  solely  to  the  support 
of  the  chair,  according  to  the  provisions  of  said  bond. 

The  president  of  the  faculty  suggested  that  the  board,  in 
courtesy,  should  ask  Dr.  Butler  to  express  to  us  freely  his 
wishes  with  reference  to  the  action  just  taken. 

Thereupon  President  Butler  addressed  the  Board  of 
Directors  as  follows : 

The  formal  establishment  by  the  board  of  "The  Edward  Robinson  Chair 
of  Biblical  Theology"  fulfils  the  object  desired  in  the  provision  which  I 
have  made  for  its  endowment.  I  beg  to  express  my  satisfaction  and  grati- 
tude for  this  action.     It  is  in  accord  with  the  views  of  the  distinguished 


534  APPENDIX. 

Christian  scholar  in  whose  memory  the  chair  is  founded.  In  a  letter  to 
the  board,  dated  January  20,  1837,  accepting  the  professorsliip  of  Sacred 
Literature,  he  said:  "The  constitution  properly  requires  every  professor 
to  declare  that  he  believes  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  Xew  Testaments 
to  be  the  Word  of  God,  the  only  infallible  rule  of  faith  and  practice. 
This  is  placing  the  Bible  in  its  ti-ue  position  as  the  only  foundation  of 
Christian  theology.  It  follows  as  a  necessary  consequence  that  the  study 
of  the  Bible,  as  taught  in  the  department  of  Biblical  Literature,  must  be 
the  foundation  of  all  right  theological  education."  ThLs  new  chair  of 
Biblical  Theology  seems  to  me  to  realize  the  sentiment  embodied  in  this 
quotation,  in  a  form  which,  if  he  were  now  present  with  us,  would  receive 
his  benediction.  It  embalms  his  memory  indissolubly  with  the  life  of  this 
seminary,  and  will  ever  be  an  inspiration  to  its  students  in  their  "search 
of  the  Scriptures." 

In  regard  to  the  incumbent  of  this  chair,  I  avail  of  the  courtesy  of 
the  board  to  express  my  wish  that  it  may  be  one  Avho  sat  as  a  pupil  at 
the  feet  of  that  eminent  teacher,  and  I  regard  it  as  a  felicity  to  the 
seminary  that  there  is  one  here  who  has  been  trained  within  its  walls, 
and  who,  by  his  ripe  scholarship  and  purity  of  character  in  Christian 
faith  and  practice,  has  won  the  confidence  and  affection  of  his  associate 
professoi-s,  of  this  Board  of  Directoi-s,  and  of  the  students  who  have  come 
under  his  teaching  during  these  years  of  faithful   and  devoted  service. 

From  what  I  have  said,  you  will  anticipate  that  my  wishes  will  be 
fully  gratified  in  the  appointment  of  the  Rev.  Charles  A.  Briggs,  D.D., 
as  eminently  qualified  to  fill  tliis  chair.  In  this  expression  of  preference, 
it  gives  me  the  greatest  pleasure  to  say  that  I  do  but  voice  the 
views  and  wishes  of  our  late  revered  president  of  the  faculty,  Roswell 
D.   Hitchcock.     Dr.    Briggs  was   his  choice  for  this  chair. 

I  cannot  doubt  that  the  highest  interests  of  this  seminary,  and,  what 
is  more,  those  of  the  Redeemei-'s  kingdom  on  earth,  will  be  promoted 
by  this  realization  of  the  plans  of  these  two  Christian  scholars,  both  as 
regards  tlie  foundation  of  the  chair  and  the  selection  of  the  suggested 
incumbent. 

THE   APPOINTMENT   OF   THE   INCUMBENT.    . 

At  the  conclusion  of  President  Butler's  address,  Henry 
Day,  Esq.,  oifcred  the  following  resolution,  which  was  unani- 
mously adopted  : 


APPENDIX.  535 

Resolved,  That  Profeasor  C^harles  A.  Briggs,  D.D.,  be  transferretl  from  the 
Davenport  Professorship  of  Hebrew  and  the  Cognate  Languages  to  the  Edward 
Kobinson  Chair  of  Biblical  Theology. 

Professor  Briggs,  having  been  dnly  advised  of  the  action 
above  recorded,  addressed  a  communication  to  the  board, 
under  date  of  January  7,  1891,  accepting  the  new  chair  to 
which  he  had  been  transferred.     It  was  as  follows : 

120  West  93d  St.,  New  York, 
January  7,  1891. 

Gentlemen  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the    Union  Theological  Seminary,  New 
York : 

I  thank  you  for  the  mark  of  confidence  expressed  in  your  choice  of 
me  to  fill  the  Edward  Eobinson  Professorship  of  Biblical  Theology.  There 
Ls  no  chair  that  so  well  suits  my  tastes  and  my  studies  for  the  past 
twenty-five  years.  Under  the  advice  of  the  faculty,  I  have  been  building 
up  the  department  of  Biblical  Theology  for  some  yeai-s  past.  But  I  had 
reached  the  limit  of  new  work.  I  could  not  advance  further  until 
relieved  of  the  Hebrew  work.  In  accepting  the  new  chair,  I  propose  to 
push  the  work  of  the  department  rapidly  forward,  and  to  cover  the  whole 
ground  of  the  chair  at  as  early  a  date  as  possible.  I  give  over  the  work 
of  the  Hebrew  ehair  to  my  pupil,  colleague,  and  friend.  Dr.  Brown, 
with  confidence,  that  building  on  the  foundations  I  have  laid,  he  will 
make   marked   improvement   upon   my   work. 

Biblical  Theology  is,  at  the  present  time,  the  vantage  ground  for  the 
solution  of  those  important  problems  in  religion,  doctrine  and  morals  that 
are  compelling  the  attention  of  the  men  of  our  times.  The  Bible  is  the 
Word  of  God,  and  its  authority  is  divine  authority  that  determines  the 
faith  and  life  of  men.  Biblical  scholai-s  have  been  long  held  in  bondage 
to  ecclesiasticism  and  dogmatism.  But  modern  Biblical  criticism  has  won 
the  battle  of  freedom.  The  accumulations  of  long  periods  of  traditional 
speculation  and  dogmatism  have  been  in  large  measure  removed,  and  the 
Bible  itself  stands  before  the  men  of  our  time  in  a  commanding  position, 
such  as  it  has  never  enjoyed  before.  On  all  sides  it  is  asked,  not  what 
do  the  creeds  teach,  what  do  the  theologians  say,  what  is  tlie  authority 
of  the  church,  hut  what  does  the  Bible  itself  teach  us?  It  is  tlie  office 
of  Biblical  Theology  to  answer  this  question.     It  is  the  culmination  of  the 


536  APPENDIX. 

work  of  Exegesis.  It  rises  on  a  complete  induction  through  all  the  de- 
partments of  Biblical  study  to  a  com]irehensive  grasp  of  the  Bible  as  a 
whole,  to  the  unity  and  variety  of  the  sum  of  its  teaching.  It  draws  the 
line  with  the  teaching  of  the  Bible.  It  fences  oft'  from  the  Scriptures 
all  the  speculations,  all  the  dogmatic  elaborations,  all  the  doctrinal  adap- 
tations that  have  been  made  in  the  history  of  doctrine  in  the  church.  It 
does  not  deny  their  propriety  and  importance,  but  it  insists  upon  the  three- 
fold distinction  as  necessary  to  trutli  and  theological  honesty,  that  the 
tlieology  of  the  Bible  is  one  thing,  the  only  infallible  authority  ;  the  theology 
of  the  creeds  is  another  thing,  having  simply  ecclesiastical  authority  ;  and 
the  theology  of  the  theologians,  or  Dogmatic  Theology,  is  a  third  thing, 
which  has  no  more  authority  than  any  other  system  of  human  construction. 
It  is  well  known  that  until  quite  recent  times,  and  even  at  present  in 
some  quartei-s,  the  creeds  have  lorded  it  over  the  Scriptures,  and  the 
dogmaticians  have  lorded  it  over  the  creeds,  so  that  in  its  last  analysis 
the  authority  in  the  church  has  been,  too  often,  the  authority  of  certain 
theologians.  Now,  Biblical  Theology  aims  to  limit  itself  strictly  to  the 
theology  of  the  Bible  itself.  Biblical  theologians  are  fallible  men,  and 
doubtless  it  is  true,  that  they  err  in  their  interpretation  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, as  have  others ;  but  it  is  the  aim  of  the  discipline  to  give  tlie 
theology  of  the  Bible  pure  and  simple  ;  and  the  inductive  and  historical 
methods  that  determine  the  working  of  the  department  are  certainly 
favorable  to  an  objective  presentation  of  the  subject,  and  are  unfavorable 
to  the  intrusion  of  subjective  fancies  and  circumstantial  considerations. 
It  will  be  my  aim,  so  long  as  I  remain  in  the  chair,  to  accomplish  this 
ideal  as  far  as  possible.  Without  fear  or  favor  I  shall  teach  the  truth 
of  God's  Word  as  I  find  it.  The  theology  of  the  Bible  is  much  simpler, 
richer,  and  grander  than  any  of  the  creeds  or  dogmatic  systems.  Tliese 
have  been  built  upon  select  portions  of  the  Bible,  and  there  is  a  capri- 
ciousness  of  selection  in  them  all.  But  Biblical  Theology  makes  no  selection 
of  texts — it  uses  the  entire  Bible  in  all  its  passages,  and  in  every  single 
passage,  giving  each  its  place  and  importance  in  the  unfolding  of  divine 
revelation.  To  Biblical  Theology  the  Bible  is  a  mine  of  untold  wealth  ; 
treasures,  new  and  old,  are  in  its  storehouses ;  all  its  avenues  lead,  in 
one  way  or  another,  to  the  presence  of  the  Living  God  and  the  Divine 
Saviour, 

The   work   of  Biblical   Theology   is  conducted   on   such   a  comprehen- 
sive study   of  the   Bible,  that  while  the  professor  builds  upon  a  thorough 


APPENDIX.  537 

study  of  the  original  texts,  his  class  must  use  their  English  Bibles.  A 
thorough  study  of  the  English  Bible  is  necessarily  included  in  the  course. 
If  the  plan  of  the  work  is  carried  out,  the  student  will  accompany  his 
professsor  through  the  entire  English  Bible  during  his  seminary  course, 
and  will  be  taught  to  expound  a  large  number  of  the  most  important 
passages  in  the  light  of  all   the   passages   leading   up   to  them. 

In  conclusion,  allow  me  to  express  my  gratitude  to  the  venerable 
president  of  the  Board  of  Directors  for  the  interest  he  has  ever  taken 
in  my  work,  for  the  honor  he  has  shown  me  in  nominating  me  for  the 
chair  he  so  generously  founded,  and  for  attaching  to  the  chair,  with 
such  modesty  and  consideration,  the  name  of  Edward  Eobinson,  my  honored 
teacher,  the  greatest  name  on  the  roll  of  Biblical  scholars  of  America, 
and  the  most  widely  known  and  honored  of  her  professors.  I  shall  regard 
it  as  my  high  calling  and  privilege  to  build  on  his  foundations,  and  to 
advance  the  work  that  he  carried  on  as  far  as  it  can  be  advanced  in 
the  circumstances  of  our  time.  The  names  of  Edward  Robinson  and 
Charles  Butler  will  be  entwined  into  a  bond  of  double  strength  to  sus- 
tain me  in   the   delicate  and   difficult   work  that   I   now   undertake  to  do. 

Faithfully, 

C.  A.  Bbiggs. 

II. 

THE   INAUGURATION. 

Tuesday  Evening,  January  20,  1891. 

President  Charles  Butler,  LL.  D.,  presided.  After  devo- 
tional exercises,  at  the  request  of  Mr.  Butler,  the  president 
of  the  faculty  made  a  brief  preliminary  statement,  as  follows  : 

As  has  been  announced,  last  May  the  president  of  the  Board  of  Di- 
rectors of  the  Union  Theological  Seminary,  Charles  Butler,  LL.D.,  pro- 
vided for  the   endowment  of  a  new   chair  in   the  sum   of  $100,000. 

On  the  basis  of  this  munificent  gift,  at  the  recent  meeting  of  the 
board,  the  new  professorship  was  formally  established,  to  be  known,  in 
accordance  with  the  request  of  President  Butler,  as  The  Edward  Robinson 
Professorship  of  Bibliccd  Theology.  This  was  designed  by  Mr.  Butler  to  be 
a  memorial  of  his  long-time  friend,  the  late  Edward  Robinson,  D.  D., 
LL.D.,   the   first  professor  of    Sacred    Literature  in   this   institution,    who 


538  APPENDIX. 

honored    tliat    chair    and    tliis    seminary    hy    his   long    and    distinguisheil 
service   from   1837   to   1863. 

The  president  of  the  board  suggested  that  it  would  be  in  accord  with 
his  own  wishes  and  Avith  those  of  his  friend,  the  late  President  Roswell 
D.  Hitchcock,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  if  the  board  should  transfer  the  Rev.  Pro- 
fessor Charles  A.  Briggs,  D.D.,  to  the  new  chair  just  established.  By 
a  unanimous  vote  the  board  at  once  adopted  the  suggestion  of  their 
|)residcnt,  and  transferred  Professor  Briggs  from  the  Dmenport  CJutir  of 
Hebrew  and  the  Cognate  Languages  to  the  Edward  Robinson  Chair  of 
Biblical  Theology.  Dr.  Briggs,  having  signified  his  acceptance  of  this 
transfer,    his  inauguration   will  now   take   place. 

President  Butler  addressed  Professor  Briggs  as  follows  : 

On  behalf  of  the  Board  of  Directors,  and  in  accordance  with  tlie 
Constitution  of  the  ' '  Union  Theological  Seminary  in  the  city  of  New 
York,"  I  call  upon  you  to  "nmke  and  subscrihe"  the  "declaration"  re- 
quired  of  each   member   of  the  faculty   of  this   institution. 

Thereupon  Professor  Briggs  made  the  "  declaration "  as 
follows : 

I  believe  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament  to  be  the  Word 
of  God,  the  only  infallible  rule  of  faith  arid  iwaclice;  and  I  do  now,  in  the 
presence  of  God  and  the  directors  of  this  seminary,  solemnly  and  sincerely 
receive  and  adopt  the  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith,  as  containing  the  sys- 
tem of  doctrine  taught  in  the  Holy  Scriptures.  I  do  also,  in  like  manna; 
approve  of  the  Presbyterian  Form  of  Government ;  and  I  do  solemnly  jwomise 
that  I  will  not  teach  or  inculcate  anything  which  shall  appear  to  me  to  be 
subversive  of  the  said  system  of  doctrines,  or  of  the  principles  of  said  Form 
of  Government,   so  long  as  1  shall  continue  to  be  a  professor  in  the  seminary. 

Thereupon  President  Butler  said  : 

In  the  name  of  the  Board  of  Directors,  I  declare  that  Professor 
Charles  A.  Briggs,  D.  D.,  is  inaugurated  as  tlie  Incumbent  of  the  Edward 
Robinson    Chair   of  Bihliad,    Theology. 

On  behalf  of  the  Board  of  Directoi-s,  the  cliai-ge  to  Professor  P>riggs 
will  now  be  delivered  l)y  tiie  mLMn})er  of  tlie  board  duly  appointed  for 
this  service — the  Rev.  David  R.  Frazer,  D.I).,  the  pastor  of  the  Fii-st 
Presbyterian   Church   of  Newark,    N.    J. 


APPENDIX.  539 


THE    CHARGE. 


My  dear  Brother  Brigos  :— 

Before  attempting  to  discharge  the  duty  which,  by  your  kind  con- 
sideration, has  been  devolved  upon  me,  permit  me  to  tender  my  heart- 
felt congratulations :  fii-st,  upon  the  establishment  of  tlie  ICdward  Robin- 
son Chair  of  Biblical  Theology  ;  a  consummation  so  devoutly  wished  for 
alike  by  yourself  and  by  our  revered  Hitchcock.  We  all  share  in  your 
joy,  and  recognize  the  new  departure  as  a  long  and  right  step  in  ad- 
vance  in    the   history   of  our   institution. 

In  the  orderings  of  God's  providence  every  age  has  its  own  peculiar 
problem  to  solve,  the  solution  being  wrought  out  from  tlie  standpoint 
of  its  own  pressing  needs.  It  is  a  marked  characteristic  of  our  day  that 
the  Bible  is  now  studied  as  never  before  in  the  world's  history,  and  the 
establishment  of  this  new  department  is  in  the  line  of  this  development, 
and  is  answerable  to  this  modern  demand.  For,  if  I  understand  aright 
the  function  of  Biblical  Theology,  it  does  not  conduct  a  simple,  gram- 
matical exercise  ;  it  does  not  discuss  the  various  textual  readings ;  it  does 
not  study  the  opinions  of  the  fathers  or  the  deliverances  of  the  church  ; 
it  does  not  formulate  a  body  of  systematic  divinity  grouped  about  some 
chosen  central  principle.  These  are  important  and  legitimate  topics  of 
study,  hence  are  properly  cared  for  in  our  curriculum.  They  will  doubt- 
less be  very  helpful  as  external  aids  in  the  prosecution  of  the  work  of 
this  chair,  but  the  peculiar  province  of  Biblical  Theology  is  to  study 
the  Word ;  to  determine  wliat  God  intends  to  say  in  His  Word,  and 
then   to   formulate   these   hallowed   teachings. 

Such  being  its  province,  I  need  not  pause  to  show  tliat  Biblical 
Theology  is  the  normal  response  to  that  modern  critical  spirit  which 
refuses  to  accept  anything  upon  the  basis  of  authority,  and  insists  upon 
tracing  everything  back  to  its  genetic  principle  and  its  efficient  cause. 
Neither  need  I  tarry  to  discriminate  shari)ly  and  accurately  between  the 
functions  of  Biblical  and  Systematic  Theology.  If  you,  my  dear  brother, 
have  any  especial  interest  in  or  desire  for  information  on  this  general 
subject,  I  would  respectfully  refer  you  to  a  work  on  "Biblical  Study," 
which  is  published  by  the  Scribnere,  and  was  written  by  one  who  has 
served  long  and  well  in,  and  has  just  been  transferred  from,  "the  Daven- 
port Professorship  of  Hebrew  and  the  Cognate  Languages"  in  tliis  insti- 
tution ;    and,    if  you   are  not  acquainted  with  the   work,    I  can  assure  you 


540  APPENDIX. 

that  the  time  spent  in  its  perusal  will  not  be  wasted,  for  yon  will  find 
therein   an   admirable   and   exhaustive   discussion   of  the  subject. 

But  I  want  to  congratulate  you,  secondly,  upon  the  fact  that  you 
are  to  be  the  incumbent  of  the  new  chair,  a  position  for  which  you  are 
pre-eminently  qualified  by  reason  of  the  peculiar  character  of  your  past 
studies.  I  am  very  well  aware  that  you  would  much  prefer  to  have 
me  discuss  the  general  topic  of  Biblical  Theology,  and  to  dwell  upon  the 
claims  it  has  to  a  place  in  our  curriculum,  rather  than  to  hint  the 
name  of,  or  make  any  reference  to  the  professor  who  is  to  occupy  the 
new  chair.  But  if  anything  of  a  personal  character  should  be  said,  please 
remember,  my  brother,  you  have  no  one  to  blame  save  yourself,  since, 
passing  by  abler  men,  you  have  kindly  insisted  that  your  old  friend  and 
classmate  should  deliver  the  charge,  as  you  enter  the  awful  responsibili- 
ties of  your  new  position.  And  as  the  class  spirit  asserts  itself,  I  will 
say,  despite  your  unspoken  protest,  that  the  class  of  '64  is  proud  of  its 
representative  ;  that  it  rejoices  in  your  well-deserved  success,  and  that  it 
appropriates  to  itself  a  peculiar  glory  by  virtue  of  the  events  of  this 
hour.  Little  did  we  dream,  when  we  sat  at  the  feet  of  that  honored 
man  whose  name  gives  dignity  to  your  new  chair,  as  also  at  the  feet 
of  those  other  scholarly  and  godly  men,  Henry  B.  Smith,  Thomas  H. 
Skinner,  Roswell  D.  Hitchcock,  and  Henry  H.  Hadley,  men  whose 
presence  was  a  benediction,  whose  instruction  was  an  inspiration,  whose 
memories  are  revered  and  hallowed,  that  there  was  among  us,  going  in 
and  out  just  as  we  went  in  and  out,  one  who  was  destined  to  sit  in 
Gamaliel's  seat  and  to  honor  the  exalted  position  by  his  scholarly  attain- 
ments. Yet  such  was  the  fact,  and  although  you  wish  I  would  not  say 
it,  still,  as  your  classmate  and  on  behalf  of  the  class  thus  signally  hon- 
ored,  I  tender  you  our  warmest  and  heartiest  congratulations. 

And  I  propose  saying  further,  since  I  betray  no  confidence  by  the 
declaration,  that  it  would  have  greatly  rejoiced  your  heart  and  would 
have  wonderfully  inspirited  you  for  your  work  could  you  have  heard 
the  cordial,  tender,  and  appreciative  words  with  which  our  venerable  and 
venerated  president  of  the  Board  of  Directors  (who  is  also  the  kind 
and  generous  patron  through  whose  munificence  the  new  cliair  has  been 
endowed,  "  Serus  in  coelum  redeas"),  placed  your  name,  the  only  name 
placed  in  nomination  for   the   position. 

And  I  am  sure  you  would  have  been  more  than  pleased  could  you 
have  witnessed  the  unanimity  with  which  the  directors  ratified  the  nomi- 


APPENDIX.  541 

nation  and  transferred  you  from  the  Davenport  Chair  of  Hebrew  to  the 
Edward  Robinson  Chair  of  Biblical  Theology.  I  congratulate  you  that 
the  honored  and  revered  founder  of  the  department  wanted  you  in  the 
department  which  he  founded,  and  also  upon  the  fact  that  you  enter 
your  new  work  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  fullest  confidence,  respect,  and 
love   of  the   directors  of  this   seminary. 

But  I  may  not  forget  that  this  is  your  hour.  Inasmuch  as  I  can- 
not hope  to  impart  any  instruction  respecting  the  peculiar  and  practical 
duties  of  your  new  position,  I  would  be  content  to  let  these  congratu- 
latory words  take  the  place  of  the  more  formal  charge.  In  order, 
however,  to  meet  the  requirements  of  my  appointment,  and  to  stir  up 
your  pure  mind  by  way   of  remembrance,   I   charge  you : 

First.  To  have  clear,  well-settled,  and  accurately  defined  views  of  the 
nature,   the   scope,   and  the   design   of  the   Holy   Scriptures. 

The  Bible  is  to  be  your  text-book,  and  the  Bible  claims  to  be  the 
book  of  God.  If  this  high  claim  cannot  be  maintained ;  if  the  Bible 
be  not  the  book  of  God,  as  verily  as  Jesus  Christ  is  the  Son  of  God, 
then  is  it  unworthy  of  our  confidence.  That  Word  which  was  in  the 
beginning  with  God  and  was  God,  and  which  in  the  fulness  of  time 
began  to  be  flesh,  was,  as  the  Incarnate  Word,  the  God-Man,  very  God 
and  very  Man.  We  do  not  understand  this  "great  mystery  of  godliness, 
God  manifest  in  the  flesh."  We  do  not  attempt  to  explain  it,  but  we 
accept  it,  we  believe  it,  we  rest  our  hopes  of  life,  here  and  hereafter, 
upon  it.  And  upon  this  same  basis  we  can  accept  the  Word  written. 
It  also  is  an  incarnation.  Great  is  the  mystery  of  Revelation,  God  mani- 
festing His  thought  in  the  forms  of  human  speech.  Since  holy  men  of 
old  spake  as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  divine  and  human 
elements  are  co-ordinated  in  the  Word  written  as  well  as  in  the  Word 
Incarnated.  We  must  recognize  the  divine  and  human  factors  in  the 
Scriptures  and  assign  a  legitimate  place  to  each  and  to  both,  but  1 
need  not  charge  you,  my  dear  brother,  to  bear  in  ceaseless  remembrance 
the  fact,  that  just  in  the  proportion  that  the  divine  element  is  eliminated 
or  is  abnormally  subordinated  to  the  human,  is  the  authority  of  the  Bible 
circumscribed  and  the  power  of  the  Bible  abridged.  You  will  never 
forget  that  you  have  God's  Word  for  your  text-book,  an^  you  will 
never  fail  to   teach   it   as   the   very    Word  of  God. 

The  scoiic  of  biblical  instruction  is  clearly  set  forth  on  the  sacred 
page.      Great   mischief   is    often    wrought    by  the   notion  that  the    Bible 


542  APPENDIX. 

aims  to  cover  the  whole  sphere  of  human  knowledge,  and  that  its 
authority  is  lessened  by  the  concession  that  there  are  some  things  which 
can  be  comprehended  without  its  aid.  We  surely  do  not  need  the  Bible 
to  teach  us  that  two  and  two  make  four,  or  that  the  whole  is  greater 
than  any  of  its  parts.  The  Holy  Word  has  a  distinct  mission  and  a 
definite  aim.  It  does  not  come  to  us  as  a  teacher  of  physics  or  of 
metaphysics,  but  as  a  revelation :  as  a  revelation  of  God :  as  a  revelation 
of  God  to  man  :  as  a  revelation  of  God  to  man  concerning  the  highest 
and  the  dearest  moral  interests  of  man,  alike  for  time  and  for  eternity. 
It  comes  to  man,  not  primarily  to  reason,  but  to  reveal,  and  to  reveal 
those  high  themes,  which,  by  necessity  of  being,  transcend  the  ordinary 
processes  of  human  thought.  While  pervaded  with  an  air  of  simplicity 
and  honesty  and  truthfulness,  it  comes  not  primarily  to  persuade,  but  to 
command,  and  to  command,  not  in  view  of  the  deductions  of  human 
reason,  or  in  the  light  of  conclusions  reached  by  the  processes  of  a 
speculative  philosophy,  but  upon  that  simple,  yet  sublime,  basis,  "Thus 
saith   the  Lord   God." 

The  design  of  Revelation  is  summed  up  essentially  in  the  Johannean 
statement,  "these  things  are  im'itten  that  ye  might  believe  that  Jesus  is 
the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  and  that  believing  ye  might  have  life  through 
His  name."  As  all  roads  led  to  Rome,  so  all  Scripture  leads  to  Christ. 
The  poetry,  the  prophecy,  the  precepts,  the  biography,  the  history  of  the 
Bible,  find  their  true  centrality  in  Him  who  was  at  once  dust  and 
Divinity,  the  Workman  of  Nazareth,  the  Prophet  of  Galilee,  "The  Lamb 
of  God  which  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world."  The  final  end  and 
ultimate  design  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  are  "  to  make  wise  unto  salva- 
tion, through  faith  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus  ; ' '  hence  it  is  your  business, 
my  dear  brother,  from  the  Word  written  to  educe  the  Word  Incarnate, 
and  I  beg  you  to  so  present  Jesus  Christ  to  all  who  come  to  you  for 
instruction,  tfiat  they  may  go  from  your  class-room  to  their  great  life- 
work,  not  only  impressed  with  an  abiding  sense  of  the  matchless  beauty 
and  the  mighty  power  of  that  Divine  Saviour  concerning  whom  the 
Scriptures  so  abundantly  testify,  but  also,  and  as  the  normal  outcome 
of  your  teachings,  with  a  fixed  determination  "  to  know  nothing  among 
men  save   Jesus  Christ  and   Him   crucified." 

But  Paul  forewarns  "of  things  hard  to  be  understood,"  of  problems 
which  must  perplex  the  most  acute  mind  and  defy  the  grasp  of  the 
most  profound  intellect.     Furthermore,  in  the    interpretation  of  the  Word, 


APPENDIX.  543 

conflicting  views  respecting  the  exact  significance  of  the  revelation  will 
arise.  Who  shall  decide  when  learned  doctors  disagree?  To  whom  shall 
the  ultimate  appeal  be  taken  ?  Manifestly  to  the  Spirit  of  the  Living 
God  by  whom  the  declaration  was  prompted,  and  to  whom  the  meaning 
is  clear  ;    hence,    I   charge   you. 

Secondly.  Seek  the  aid  of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  your  arduous  and 
responsible   work. 

I  attempt  no  solution  of  the  mooted  questions  as  to  whether  our 
Lord's  promise  of  the  Holy  Ghost  should  lead  believers  in  "the  way 
of  all  truth,"  was  restricted  to  the  Apostolic  College,  and  was  literally 
fulfilled  in  the  written  revelation,  or  whether  it  pertains  to  believers 
in   all   time. 

But  the  Scriptures  most  clearly  require  that  all  believers  should 
"live  in  the  Spirit,"  "walk  in  the  Spirit,"  "be  filled  with  the  Spirit." 
Christian  consciousness  bears  witness  that  the  abiding  presence  of  the 
Spirit  begets  deep  and  vital  spirituality,  and  Christian  experience  abund- 
antly confirms  the  assertion  that  vital  spirituality  ensures  a  large  insight 
of  that  truth  which  nuist  be  spiritually  discerned.  A  willingness  to  do 
God's  will  must  precede  the  knowledge  of  the  doctrine,  and  this  will- 
ingness of  mind  and  heart  must  be  begotten  by  the  Holy  Ghost.  Put 
peculiar  honor  upon  the  Divine  Spirit  and  He  will  put  peculiar  honor 
upon  you  and  your  work.  He  will  open  your  eyes  to  behold  the 
wondrous  things  in  God's  law;  He  will  give  you  the  witness  of  His 
presence  in  your  own  soul,  and  will  enable  you,  in  all  meekness  and 
humility,  yet  with  the  highest  Christian  positiveness,  to  say :  I  know 
whom  and  what  and  why  I  have  believed,  and  am  persuaded  that  my 
confidence  rests  not  upon  the  wisdom  of  man,  but  upon  the  wisdom  of  God. 

And  as  you  thus  teach  the  Word  of  God  under  the  guidance  of 
the  Spirit  of  God ;  as  day  by  day  you  present  the  truth  as  it  is  in 
Jesus  to  those  who  are  to  preach  a  crucified  Redeemer  to,  dying  men, 
may  the  Lord  bless  you  and  keep  you ;  may  He  equip  you  for  duty, 
help  you  in  the  discharge  of  it,  and  when  your  great  work  is  finisiied 
may  His  "Well  done"  be  pronounced  upon  His  "good  and  faithful 
servant." 

III. 

QUESTIONS   SUBMITTED   TO    DR.  BRIGGS   AND    HIS   ANSWERS. 

In  view  of  tlie  general  attiick  upon  Dr.  Briggs  the  Board 


544  APPENDIX. 

of  Directors  appointed  a  committee  of  three  to  prepare  a 
series  of  questions  for  categorical  answers  from  Dr.  Briggs. 
That  committee  reported  June  5,  1891,  as  follows: 

Question  1.  Do  you  consider  the  Bible,  the  Church,  and  the  Reason 
as  co-ordinate   sources  of  authority  ?     Answer.     No. 

Or,  do  you  believe  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New-  Testament 
to  be   the   only   infallible   rule   of  faith   and   practice?     Answer.     Yes. 

Question  2.  When  you  use  the  word  "  reason "  do  you  include  the 
conscience  and   the   religious   feelings?     Answer.     Yes. 

Question  3.  Would  you  accept  the  following  as  a  satisfactory  defini- 
tion of  inspiration:  "Inspiration  is  such  a  divine  direction  as  to  secure 
an  infallible  record  of  God's  revelation  in  respect  to  both  fact  and  doc- 
trine ? "     Answer.     Yes. 

Question  4.  Do  you  believe  the  Bible  to  be  inerrant  in  all  matters 
concerning  faith  and  practice,  and  in  everything  in  which  it  is  a  reve- 
lation from  God  or  a  vehicle  of  divine  truth,  and  that  there  are  no  errors 
that  disturb  its  infallibility  in  these  matters  or  in  its  records  of  the  historic 
events  and  institutions  with  which  they  are  inseparably  connected?  An- 
swer.    Yes. 

Question  5.  Do  you  believe  that  the  miracles  recorded  in  Scripture 
are  due  to  an  extraordinary  exercise  of  divine  energy  either  directly  or 
mediately  through  holy  men?     Answer.     Yes. 

Question  6.  Do  you  hold  what  is  commonly  known  as  the  doctrine 
of  a  second  probation?      Do  you  believe  in  Purgatory?      Answer.      No. 

Question  7.  Do  you  believe  that  the  issues  of  this  life  are  final  and 
that  a  man  who  dies  impenitent  will  have  no  further  opportunity  of  sal- 
vation ?    Answer.     Yes. 

Question  8.  Is  your  theory  of  progressive  sanctiflcation  such  that  it 
will  permit  you  to  say  that  you  believe  that  when  a  man  dies  in  the  faith 
he  enters  the  middle  state  regenerated,  justified  and  sinless?    Answer.     Yes. 

IV. 

RESOLUTIONS  OF  THE   BOARD  OF   DIRECTORS   SUSTAINING    DR. 
BRIGGS,  AS   PASSED   UNANIMOUSLY   MAY    19,  1891. 

Besolved,  That  this  board  has  listened  with  satisfaction  to  the  cate- 
gorical  replies  rendered  by  Dr.   Briggs  to  the  questions  submitted  to  him, 


APPENDIX.  545 

and  that  it  trusts  that  the  manner  in  which  he  has  therein  dealt  witli  tlie 
points  that  are  in  dispute  will  operate  to  correct  the  niisappreliensions  that 
are  so  widely  current,  and  to  quiet  the  disturbed  condition  of  mind  in  which, 
as  a  communion,  we  are  so  unhappily  involved. 

Resnhvd,  The  directors  of  the  Union  Theological  Seminary  desire  to 
express  to  Professor  Briggs  their  high  appreciation  of  his  Christian  courtesy 
in  the  consultations  which  he  has  had  with  the  Conunittee  of  Inquiry  in 
reference  to  the  trying  questions  now  under  consideration. 

They  will  stand  by  him  heartily  on  the  ground  of  this  report,  and 
afl'ectionately  commend  him  to  the  leading  of  our  common  Mastei',  having 
perfect   confidence   in  his   honesty   of   purpose. 

E.  M.  KiNGSLEY,  John  Crosby  Brown, 

Recorder.  Vice-President. 

New  York,  May  19,  1891. 

V. 

STATEMENT   OF   THE    FACULTY    OF    UNION   THEOLOGICAL 
SEMINARY. 

In  view  of  the  general  comment  and  discussion  called 
forth  ]>y  the  recent  inaugural  address  of  Professor  Charles 
A.  Briggs,  D.D.,  the  undersigned,  members  of  the  facidty 
of  Union  Theological  Seminary,  deem  it  their  duty  to  make 
the  following  statement : 

With  the  conviction  that  Christian  courtesy,  modesty  and  mutual 
respect  for  difference  of  opinion  shoidd  characterize  theological  contro- 
versy, we  distinctly  recognize  and  deprecate  the  dogmatic  and  irritating 
character  of  certain  of  Dr.  Briggs'  utterances  in  his  Inaugural  and  in 
others  of  his  writings :  while,  on  the  other  hand,  we  do  not  recognize, 
even  in  these,  any  warrant  for  persistent  misre})resentations  of  his  views, 
and  f(jr  the  style  and  temper  in  which  he  has  in  many  cases  been 
assailed. 

1.     The   views  propounded  by  Dr.    Brif/r/s   in   his  Iruuujural  are  not  new. 

They  have  all  been  stated  by  him  in  one  or  another  of  his  jjuIi- 
lished  works,  in  articles  in  the  Presbyterian  Review,  during  his  ten 
years'  editorship,  and  in  more  recent  contributions  to  other  periodicals. 
Moreover,  for  the  past  ten  years,  Dr.  Briggs  has  been  teaching  Biblical 
Theology   in  the  seminary,   and  has  been  expounding  to  successive  classes 


546  APPENDIX. 

of  students  the  statements  for  which  he  is  now  arraigned.  The  present 
excitement  is,  as  we  believe,  due,  largely,  to  the  tone  of  the  Inaugural 
Address,  to  certain  unguarded  expressions,  and  to  an  impression  that 
the  transfer  of  the  author  to  the  Chair  of  Biblical  Theology  would  be 
subject  to  the   veto   of  the  General   Assembly. 

2.  The  address  contains,  in  our  judgment,  nothing  which  can  be  fairly 
construed  into  heresy  or  departure  from  the  Westminster  Confession,  to  which 
Dr.    Briggs   honestly   subscribed   at   his   recent   inauguration. 

(a)  His  words  concerning  "  Bibliolatry "  are  not  aimed  at  humble 
and  devout  reverence  for  the  Word  of  God,  but  at  the  error,  rebuked 
by  the  Apostle   Paul,  of  revering  "  the   letter"   above    "the  spirit." 

(6)  Dr.  Briggs  declares  that,  conjointly  with  the  Bible,  the  Church 
and  the  Reason  are  sources  of  authority  in  religion.  He  uses  the  term 
"reason"  as  embracing  the  conscience  and  the  religious  feeling.  We 
object  to  the  term  "sources,"  since  there  is  but  one  source  of  divine 
authority— God  himself.  We  prefer  to  say  that  the  Bible,  the  Church, 
and  the  Keason  are  media  and  vehicles  through  which  we  recognize  and 
receive  the  divine  authority.  This  is  the  generally-accepted  Protestant 
position.  Every  Church  in  Christendom  admits  that  the  church  is  a 
medium   of  divine   authority. 

The  Confession  of  Faith  declares  that  "unto  the  catholic,  visible 
Church,    Christ  hath  given   the   ministry,    oracles   and   ordimuices   of  God." 

That  the  reason,  in  the  broad  sense  in  which  it  is  explained  by 
Dr.  Briggs,  is  also  an  organ  to  and  through  which  the  divine  authority 
is  conveyed,  is  assumed  in  Scripture  and  in  the  Confession,  and  is  the 
necessary  postulate  of  a  divine  revelation  to  man.  It  is  the  only  point 
in  the  natural  man  to  which  the  qualities  of  God's  character,  the 
operations  of  His  power,  and  the  right-reasonableness  of  His  claims  can 
appeal :  and  it  is  distinctly  declared  and  assumed  by  St.  Paul  to  be 
the  recipient  of  such  appeals;  to  be  the  subject  of  the  divine  Spirit's 
illumination  ;  and  to  become  thus  the  proper  instrument  for  discerning, 
comparing  and  judging  spiritual  truth.  If  the  reason  has  no  sucli 
function  in  religion,  it  is  superfluous  to  assert  that  "Scripture  is 
profitable  for  teaching,  for  discipline,  and  for  upbuilding  in  righteousness." 
Spiritual  righteousness  implies  an  inlclligcnl  and  rational  perception  and 
reception  of  the  law  and  triilli  of  God.  Tlie  liclng  sacrifice  which  is 
"holy   and   acceptable   unto   (Jod "    is   a    '^rational   service." 


APPENDIX.  547 

But  Dr.  Briggs  does  not,  with  the  Romanist,  exalt  the  Church 
above  the  Bible  and  the  Reason.  He  does  not,  with  the  Rationalist,  place 
the  Reason  above  the  Bible  and  the  Church.  Neither  does  he,  as  has  been 
often  charged,  co-ordinate  the  three  sources.  His  position  is  the  Protest- 
ant and  the  Presbyterian  position,  assumed  in  his  subscription  to  the 
declaration  of  the  Confession,  that  the  Scriptures  are  "the  only  infalliljlc 
rule  of  faith  and  practice,"  and  asserted  in  his  address  in  the  words : 
"  Protestant  Christianity  builds  its  faith  and  life  on  the  divine  authority 
contained  in  the  Scriptures."  That  Protestant  Christianity  too  often  de- 
preciates the  Church  and  the  Reason  is  an  entirely  distinct  statement, 
involving  a  question  of  fact ;  and  the  statement  and  its  discussion  in  no 
way  affect  Dr.  Briggs'  endorsement  of  the  Protestant  doctrine  of  the 
supreme  authority  of  Scripture. 

To  assert,  as  has  been  so  often  done,  that  Dr.  Briggs  is  aiming  to 
undermine  the  divine  authority  of  Scripture,  is  preeminently  unfair.  Not 
only  this  Inaugural,  but  all  his  published  writings,  teem  with  the  most 
positive  and  uncompromising  expressions  of  love  and  reverence  for  the 
Bible. 

(a).  The  consistency  of  Dr.  Briggs'  position  as  to  the  supreme  authority 
and  divine  quality  of  Holy  Scripture,  is  in  no  way  affected  by  his  views  of  tlie 
nature  of  Inspiration. 

While  asserting  the  plenary  inspiration  of  Scripture,  he  denies  that 
inspiration  involves  absolute  inerrancy  —  literal,  verbal  accuracy,  and  perfect 
correspondence  of  minor  details. 

In  this  view  there  is  nothing  original  or  new.  It  is  the  view  of 
Calvin,  and  of  an  overwhelming  majority  of  Protestant  divines  in  Europe 
and  America.  It  was  propounded  at  least  eight  years  ago  by  Dr.  Briggs  in 
his  "Biblical  Study." 

Inspiration,  in  the  sense  of  literal  inerrancy,  is  nowhere  claimed  for 
Scripture  by  Scripture  itself. 

It  is  contradicted  by  the  contents  of  Scripture  in  the  form  in  which 
we  have  it.  It  involves,  logically,  a  minute,  specific  divine  sujierintend- 
ence  of  each  detail  of  the  entire  process  of  transmission — copying,  trans- 
lating, printing — and  the  prevention  of  all  errors.  It  confronts  those  who 
maintain  it  not  only  with  discrepancies  of  statement  in  the  present  text, 
but  with  the  innumerable  textual  variations  in  the  Hebrew  and  Greek 
Bibles,  and  the  variations  between  the  Hebrew  and  the  Septuagint.  To 
meet  these  facts  with  the  assertion  of  the  inerrancy  of  the  original   auto- 


548  APPENDIX. 

graphs,  is  to  beg  the  whole  question  in  dispute,  to  lav  down  a  purely 
arbitrary,  a  priori  hypothesis,  and  to  introduce  into  tlie  discussion  an  en- 
tirely irrelevant  factor,  seeing  that  the  errors  and  discrepancies  remain  and 
the  original  autographs  cannot  be  recovered. 

To  make  the  inspiration  of  Scripture  turn  upon  verbal  inerrancy  is  to 
commit  the  Church  to  an  utterly  untenable  position,  and  to  place  her  apol- 
ogists at  the  mercy  of  cavillei's  who  are  only  too  glad  to  evade  broader 
and  deeper  issues  and  to  shift  the  discussion  to  the  region  of  mere  verbal 
details,  where  they  are  sure  to  have  the  best  of  the  argument. 

Dr.  Briggs  holds  and  teaches  the  doctrine  of  the  divine  inspiration, 
infallibility,  and  authority  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  in  all  matters  of  Christian 
faith  and  duty,  which  is  all  that  any  evangelical  divine  is  bound  to  main- 
tain on  that  subject.  The  Westminster  and  other  Confessions  of  Faith 
clearly  and  strongly  assert  the  fact  of  divine  inspiration,  but  wisely  abstain 
from  defining  the  mode  and  degrees  of  divine  inspiration.  The  former  is 
a  matter  of  faith,  the  latter  of  human  theory,  on  which  there  must  be  liberty 
if  there  is  to  be  any  progress.  To  impose  upon  a  Christian  teacher  any 
particular  theory  of  inspiration  not  sanctioned  by  the  Bible  itself  is  tyranny. 

(fZ).  Dr.  Briggs  is  further  charged  with  a  departure  from  the  West- 
minster Eschatology  in  teaching  progressive  sanctification  after  death. 

While  we  are  not  to  be  understood  as  accepting  or  endorsing  Dr. 
Briggs'  conclusions  on  this  point,  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that  he  is  here  in 
an  open  field,  where,  having  expressly  repudiated  the  doctrines  of  future 
probation,  universal  restoration,  and  the  Romanist  purgatory,  he  is  cer- 
tainly entitled  to  the  largest  liberty  in  the  attempt  to  elucidate  a  subject 
so  little  undei-stood,  and  on  which  the  standards  are  open  to  differences 
of  interpretation.  The  phrase  "progressive  sanctification  after  death" 
admits  of  a  sound  and  orthodox  interpretation ;  but  Protestant  Eschat- 
ology, as  defined  in  the  Confessions  of  the  16th  and  17th  centuries,  is 
generally  admitted  to  be  defective  and  in  need  of  further  development 
within  the  limits  of  that  caution  and  reserve  imposed  by  the  comparative 
silence  of  Scripture  on  that  mysterious  period  between  death  and  resurrec- 
tion. In  the  words  of  the  late  Henry  B.  vSmith  written  not  long  before 
his  death:  "  Wiiat  Reformed  Theology  has  got  to  do  is  to  Christologize 
predestination  and  decrees,  regeneration  and  sanctification,  the  doctrine  of 
the   Church   and   the  ivhole  of  Eschatology. 

III.  After  years  of  familiar  acquaintance  with  Dr.  Briggs  and  his 
teaching,   we   are   moved  to   utter  our  emphatic   protest   against   the   spirit 


APPENDIX.  549 

and  language  with  which,  in  so  many  cases,  he  has  been  assailed.  If,  in 
any  of  his  writings,  Dr.  Briggs,  as  is  charged,  has  wantonly  offended  the 
honest  convictions  of  good  men,  or  has  in  any  otlier  way  sinned  against 
the  ethical  code  of  Christian  sciiolai-sliip  laid  down  in  the  New  Testament, 
it  is  not  our  business  to  defend  liira  therein.  He  must  answer  for  it  to 
his  own  conscience  and  to  God.  But  in  tlie  public  discussion  of  mattere 
of  opinion,  it  is  neither  right  nor  decent  that  an  earnest,  learned,  devoted 
scholar  and  faithful  teacher,  even  though  mistaken,  should  be  attacked 
with  virulence,  contemptuous  flippancy,  and  imputations  of  unworthy 
motive.  In  too  many  instances  it  seems  to  have  been  assumed  that  all 
the  sacredness  of  personal  conviction  is  upon  one  side  ;  that  a  higher  critic 
can  have  no  convictions  or  rights  wliich  the  lower  critic  or  the  uncritical 
censor  is  bound  to  respect ;  and  that  the  ftict  of  liis  differing  with  them 
justifies  his  opponents  in  laying  aside  in  discussion  the  character  of 
Christian  gentlemen. 

We  know  Dr.  Briggs  to  be  an  earnest  Christian,  a  devout  student 
of  the  Bible,  an  indefatigable  teacher  and  worker,  and  one  who  holds 
the  standards  of  the  Church  with  an  intelligence  based  on  an  exhaustive 
study  of  their  Iiistory  and  literature.  Tlie  numerous  testimonies  of  his 
students  during  seventeen  years  prove  that  lie  inspires  them  with  a  deep 
reverence  and   enthusiasm  for  the   Bible. 

In  like  manner  we  protest  against  the  matter  and  temper  of  the 
assaults  on  Union  Seminary.  By  its  history  of  over  half  a  century,  by 
the  character,  standing,  and  services  of  its  graduates,  and  by  tlie  amount 
and  value  of  its  contributions  to  Christian  Literature,  this  Institution 
should  be  insured  against  such  assaults.  Its  value  to  the  Presbyterian 
Church  needs  no  demonstration.  From  the  days  of  Edward  Robinson,  the 
pioneer  of  Palestine  exploration  and  the  founder  of  American  Biblical 
Lexicograghy,  Union  Seminary  has  steadily  pressed  forward  on  the  lines  of 
advanced  Biblical  study.  Its  Professors,  in  subscribing  to  the  Westminster 
standards,  have  always  been  undei-stood  to  do  so  witli  tlie  concession  of 
that  measure  of  freedom  which  is  the  riglit  of  every  Christian  scholar. 
They  honor  the  venerable  Confessions  of  past  ages,  but  they  place  the 
Bible  above  the  Confessions,  and  hold  themselves  bound  by  tlieir  loyalty 
to  Christ  and  to  His  Church,  to  follow  the  trutli  withereoever  it  may 
lead  them. 

We  assert  and  must  insist  upon  the  liberty  exercised  liv  llic  Reformers 
and   by    the  early   Cliurcb,    to   discuss   tlie   Scriptures   freely   and    reverently 


550  APPENDIX. 

and  to  avail  ourselves  of  all  the  liglit  which  may  he  thrown  upon  them 
from  any  source.  It  is  in  the  interest  of  God's  trutli  to  set  forth  Scripture 
as  it  is,  and  not  to  expose  its  friends  and  teachers  to  humiliation  and 
defeat  by  claiming  for  it  that  it  cannot  be  substantiated.  In  the  words 
of  Ullman,  "Not  fixedness  nor  revolution,  but  evolution  and  reform,  is  the 
motto  for  our  times."  We  maintain  that  human  conceptions  of  the  Bible 
and  of  its  inspired  teachings  are  subject  to  revision.  To  grasp  the  results 
of  deeper  research  and  to  apply  them  with  caution,  reverence,  and  boldness 
is  not  only  our  priiilege,  it  is  our  solemn  duty  in  the  discharge  of  the 
sacred  trust  committed  to  us  by  Christ  and  His  Church.  More  light  is 
yet  to  break  from  God's  Word.  We  would  be  found  ever  upon  the 
watch-towers  to  catch  and  to  transmit  its  rays.  No  theological  school  can 
take  any  other  attitude  without  neglecting  its  duty  to  the  present  age 
and  losing  its  hold  upon  the  rising  generation  of  Biblical  students.  That 
such  method  may  dissipate  or  modify  certain  traditional  views  as  to  the 
origin  or  date  of  the  Books  of  Scripture  ;  that  it  may  expose  and  correct 
certain  long-established  errors  of  interpretation  ;  tliat  it  may  modify  certain 
theological  dogmas,  is  only  what  is  to  be  expected  from  similar  results 
in  the  past.  But  we  have  no  fear  for  the  Bible.  The  Word  of  God 
will  come  forth  from  the  fire  of  reverent  criticism  as  fine  gold  with  a 
new  accretion  of  testimony  to  its  divine  origin,  and  a  new  })Ower  of  ajipeal 
to   the   world. 

(Signed), 

Thomas  S.  Hastings,  {President), 
Philip  Schaff, 
George  L.  Prentiss, 
Marvin  R.  Vincent. 

(Professor  Francis  Brown  is  at  Oxford,  superintending  the  publication  of  his 
Hebrew  Lexicon.) 

B. 

Dr.  Patton's  statement  referred  to  on  ]^at^e  132  was 
elicited  by  the  following  remarks  of  President  Hastings: 

Dr.  Hastings:  May  I  ask  a  single  question  of  you,  Dr.  Patton,  as 
chairman  of  the  late  conunittee  on  Theological  Seminaries?  You  may 
have  noticed  in  the  paper  su1)mitted  that  the  action  in  the  matter  of  the 
transfer,  therein  referred  to,  was  taken  by  tlie  Executive  Conmiittee  and 
laid    before  the  Board    before  the   meetiii'''  of  tlie   General    Assemblv.      But 


APPENDTX.  55;[ 

the  Board  did  not  communicate  that  paper  to  the  Committee  on 
Theological  Seminaries,  because  it  decided  that  it  would  not  be  respectful 
to  the  General  Assembly  to  assume  that  the  Assembly  would  undertake  to 
do,  under  the  Agreement  of  1870,  what  we  think  it  had  not  the  right 
to  do  ;  but  we  sent  to  the  Assembly  Dr.  White,  who  prepared  the  paper, 
Dr.  Dickey  and  Dr.  Parkhurst,  saying  to  ourselves  and  to  them  that  if 
the  Committee  on  Theological  Seminaries  in  the  General  Assembly  desired 
information  as  to  our  views,  that  Committee  will  ask  our  representatives 
for  such  information.  We  learned  that  Dr.  White  offered  such  informa- 
tion. Dr.  Patton  courteously  said  he  would  call  him  before  the 
Committee.  Dr.  White  was  not  called  before  the  Committee.  That  we 
have  not  been  able  to  understand.  If  Dr.  Patton,  as  chairman  of  the 
General  Assembly's  Committee  on  Theological  Seminaries,  could  give  us 
light   about  that   it  would   relieve   some   of  us. 

Dr.  Patton  :  It  will  give  me  the  greatest  pleasure  in  tlie  world  to 
tell  all  I  know  about  it,  Mr.  Chairman.  Soon  after  I  was  appointed  I 
received  a  personal  letter  from  Dr.  White,  stating  substantially  this  :  that 
he  was  a  Director  of  the  .Union  Theological  Seminary,  and  that  he  was 
intimately  acquainted  with  its  ins  and  outs ;  that  he  knew  everything 
that  had  occurred  in  reference  to  the  matter  that  was  likely  to  come 
before  the  General  Assembly,  in  the  case  of  Dr.  Briggs  ;  and,  particularly, 
that  he  was  one  of  the  committee  of  three,  who  prepared  the  questions 
to  which  Dr.  Briggs  gave  the  categorical  answers  with  which  we  are 
familiar,  and  that  he  would  like  to  have  the  opportunity  'of  a  personal 
interview  with  me  as  chairman  of  that  committee,  because  he  thouglit 
he  could  put  me  in  possession  of  some  facts  that  I  ouglit  to  know.  Well, 
I  received  the  letter.  It  was  a  personal  letter  to  me,  to  be  sure,  l)ut  it 
was  not  a  confidential  letter  and  I  happened  to  receive  my  mail,  or  I 
happened  to  have  my  mail  with  me,  in  the  committee  room  over  the 
gallery.  I  said:  "Brethren,  here  is  a  letter  from  Dr.  Erskine  N.  White, 
in  which  he  says  he  would  like  an  interview  with  me  on  the  matter 
of  Dr.  Briggs.  Now,  I  said,  I  feel  that,  in  the  first  place,  this  committee 
should  keep  its  own  counsel  and  talk  absolutely  to  no  one  ( I  think  it 
was  the  most  reticent  committee  in  the  Assembly — I  never  heard  of  any 
member  of  the  committee  telling  anything  to  anybody) ;  if  there  is  to  be 
any  communication  made  it  should  be  made  to  the  entire  committee. 
For  myself  I  am  unwilling  to  be  burdened  with  any  confidences  from 
any   source,    in    regard    to    any   matter  that    is    to   come    before   us    as   a 


552  APPENDIX. 

committee.  If  the  committee  wishes  to  hear  Dr.  White,  I  am  entirely 
willing  that  it  should  do  so.  It  may  be  best  to  hear  him,  but  I  simply 
wish  to  say  that  I  am  not  willing  to  take  information  that  is  not  the 
common  property  of  every  member  of  the  committee."  The  committee 
agreed  with  me,  and  we  said  well,  perhaps  it  would  be  better  to  hear 
Dr.  White ;  and  by  a  general  consent,  though  I  think  no  formal  vote 
was  taken,  we  agreed  to  hear  him.  After  the  committee  had  adjourned 
I  went  downstairs  and  happened  to  meet  Dr.  White.  I  said:  "Dr. 
White,  I  read  your  letter  to  the  committee  ;  and  to  be  frank  with  you, 
I  am  not  going  to  talk  with  you  or  with  anybody  else  on  the  case. 
We  are  charged  with  a  very  serious  busine&s,  it  is  an  immense  respon- 
sibility put  on  us,  and  we  are  going  to  take  it,  but  I  think  the 
committee  will  hear  you."  He  said,  "I  shall  be  very  glad  to  wait 
upon  the  committee."  He"  did  suggest — I  don't  know  just  in  what 
form  or  how  emphatically,  whether  in  the  form  of  a  distinct  preference, 
or  in  the  form  of  a  modest  disclaimer  of  precedence  in  favor  of 
Dr.  Dickey — but,  in  all  events,  he  did  suggest  that  perhaps  it 
would  be  better  for  the  committee  to  hear  Dr.  Dickey.  "Very  well," 
I  said,  ' '  I  will  see  the  committee. ' '  I  went  back  to  the  committee  at 
a  subsequent  meeting  and  reported  substantially  what  Dr.  White  had 
said.  We  concluded  that,  perhaps,  it  would  be  better  to  hear  Dr.  Dickey. 
Then  somebody  raised  the  question,  "Do  we  know  that  Dr.  Dickey  or 
Dr.  White  has  been  authorized  by  the  Board  to  speak  for  it?  Are  we 
not  assuming  a  great  deal  in  that?  How  do  we  know  that  the  Board 
would  not  prefer  somebody  else?  Well,"  we  said,  "maybe  we  will 
leave  it  with  the  men  who  are  here  in  the  Assembly  that  really  represent 
the  seminary."  That  we  left  in  the  same  informal  and  ragged  way 
without  any  definite  action,  until  my  report  was  fully  ready,  had  passed 
our  sub-committee  and  had  been  adopted,  word  for  word,  by  the  sub- 
committee of  five,  and  I  was  ready  to  read  it  in  the  full  session  of 
the  committee.  I  read  it,  and  we  were  ready  to  adopt  it,  when  a 
member  of  the  committee  said,  "Are  we  not  going  to  hear  some  of  the 
representatives  of  Union  Seminary?"  That,  I  said,  was  for  the  com- 
mittee to  decide.  Tlie  Assembly  was  getting  a  little  weary  and  wanted 
to  know  when  the  matter  was  to  come  up.  It  had  been  made  the  order 
of  the  day  for  Tiiursday  morning,  and  we  wanted  to  get  the  report  in, 
in  order  that  the  members  of  tiie  Assembly  might  have  the  benefit  of 
reading   it  the   night   before,    and    that   there   might   not    be   anv   needless 


APPENDIX.  653 

delay  the  next  day.  Somebody  said — I  think  it  was  Dr.  Ilnraphrey,  who 
was  a  member  of  the  committee — "Well,  what  is  lo  Ix;  gained  by  iiaving 
any  one  represent  Union  Seminary?  We  can  only  act  on  tlie  li,i,dit  of 
official  communication  ;  private  opinions  and  representations  of  a  con- 
fidental  nature — comminiications  that  are  not  in  the  nature  of  evidence, 
and  that  only  show  the  sentiment  or  temper  of  tiie  Board  of  Directors — 
ought  not,  and  cannot,  influence  our  judgement  upon  the  square  issues 
brought  before  us  in  the  official  report  of  the  Directors  of  Union  Theo- 
logical Seminary.  It  may  be  a  great  deal  more  embarrassing  to  have  that 
sort  of  communication  than  not ;  we  cannot  act  upon  it,  and  if  we  have 
it  and  don't  act  upon  it,  it  does  not  look  well;  and  let  us  remember 
tliat  two  Directors  of  Union  Theological  Seminary  are  themselves  members 
of  the  Assembly  and  have  all  the  privileges  of  tlie  floor,  with  great 
facility  of  speech  besides  (meaning  Dr.  Parkhurst  and  Dr.  Dickey). 
We  may  make  mistakes  in  our  report,  to  be  sure,  but  we  must  take  the 
responsibility,  and  if  we  are  the  subject  of  blame,  wliy,  we  must  bear  the 
blame.  We  must  take  the  responsibility  of  making  the  report  in  the 
light  of  conscience,  and  with  the  best  guidance  we  can  get,  upon  the 
basis  of  the  facts  officially  before  us.  Then  if  the  Assembly,  under  the 
guidance  and  with  the  new  light,  and  the  reinforcement  that  shall  come 
through  the  medium  of  Dr.  Dickey  and  Dr.  Parkhurst,  who  luidoubtedly 
will  speak  in  behalf  of  Union  Seminary,  sees  fit  to  modify  tlie  report, 
we  will  cheerfully  submit  to  the  modification.  Of  course,  it  will  be  in 
the  Assembly's  power  to  do  what  it  thinks  best  wlicn  all  the  facts  are 
before    it." 

Now,  if  we  had  known  that  our  not  hearing  Dr.  White  would  hurt 
the  feelings  of  any  member  of  this  Board,  we  would  have  heard  him, 
and  anybody  else  connected  with  Union  Seminary.  1  think  tliere  is  no 
doubt  about  that.  At  the  same  time,  if  you  ask  the  question,  whether 
in  the  light  of  my  sober  judgment  after  these  months  of  reflection,  I 
think  any  rights  were  neglected  by  our  failure  to  hoar  Dr.  White,  or 
to  hear  any  representative  of  Union  Seminary,  I  must  very  frankly  say 
that  I  do  not  feel  that  there  have  been.  I  do  not  think  that  we  took 
a  single  step  upon  which  we  ought  to  look  back  with  regret.  I  am 
inclined  to  think  that  if  I  should  ever  be  cliairman  of  another  connnittee 
(I  trust  it  will  not  be  of  Theological  >Seminaries)  but  if  T  should  ever  be 
chairman  of  a  committee,  or  a  committee  charged  willi  serious  res])On- 
sibilities    in    tlie  future,    I   should  be   very  careful  how    1    rfcouHuendfd   an 


554  APPENDIX. 

action  that  would  solicit  ex-pnrtc  representations  of  an"  unofficial,  and 
perhaps,  of  a  confidential  kind,  that  might  enlist  feeling,  but  that  ought 
not  to  aflfect  judgment.  That  is  my  present  conviction,  and  if  our  com- 
mittee seems  to  have  erred  in  a  matter  of  judgment,  why,  of  course, 
we  are  sorry  for  that,  but  so  far  as  the  question  of  technical  right  and 
substantial  justice   is  concerned,    I   don't    think  we  erred  at  all. 

And  now,  while  I  am  on  my  feet,  if  the  Directors  will  bear  with 
me,  I  will  say  another  word  apropos  of  what  Dr.  Hastings  has  said.  *  I 
did  not  know  it  then,  and  have  not  known  it  until  now,  but  I  take  it 
that  the  purpose  of  the  interview  between  Dr.  White  and  our  committee 
was  to  present  to  our  committee  the  view  taken  by  this  Board  of 
Directors  with  respect  to  the  construction  of  that  arrangement  of  1870. 
Now  I  want  to  say — and  I  will  think  aloud — that  that  view  would  not  have 
taken  us  by  surprise,  for  I  knew  it  already.  I  am  afraid  I  read  the  New 
York  Evangelist  on  Sunday  and  the  jjart  of  it  that  was  not  so  distinctly 
devotional,  more  than  I  read  some  other  things,  that  might  have  been 
more  suited  to  the  day.  But  I  had  that  problem  on  my  mind  and 
heart  the  whole  Lord's  day,  because  I  could  not  get  rid  of  it,  except 
while  1  was  preaching.  When  I  went  into  that  committee  room — I  am 
thinking  aloud  again — I  had  never  expressed  in  conversation,  I  had 
never  expressed  iri  writing,  by  signed  article,  or  by  anonymous  com- 
munication, or  by  confidential  letter,  or  by  a  letter  less  confidential,  nor 
by  oral  utterance  or  communication,  directly  or  indirectly  made,  anything 
whatever  upon  this  whole  question  of  Dr.  Briggs  and  his  relations  to 
the  General  Assembly,  and  to  the  Presbytery  ;  not  a  thing.  My  whole 
expression  of  myself  has  been  in  the  report  of  the  General  Assembly's 
committee  on  Theological  Seminaries.  That  I  did  write  every  word 
of  it  and  that  I  am  thoroughly  ready  to  assume  the  responsibility  of  at 
any  time.  And  to  come  back  to  where  I  was,  the  distinction  that  this 
Board  adopted  was  fully  before  us,  and  it  was  thoroughly  weighed,  and 
we  knew  it,  and  I  think  we  had  read  Dr.  Prentiss'  article  (I  had)  very 
carefully,  and  the  reason  that  we  did  not  adopt  the  distinction  con- 
templated by  this  Board  (and  that  this  Board  has  evidently  seen  its 
way  to  adopt),  was  because  we  could  not  do  it.  We  looked  at  this 
matter,  we  went  around  the  circle,  we  called  upon  every  man  to  give 
his  opinion  upon  the  question,  as  to  whether  a  fair  construction  of  the 
language  of  the  compact  of  1870  made  between  the  General  Assembly 
and   the   Seminary    would  justify   us   in  saying  that  a  transfer   is   not  an 


APPENDIX.  555 

appointment  within  the  meaning  of  that  arrangement.  We  said  no,  it 
would  not ;  and  we  said  in  our  committee  it  would  not.  I  reached  that 
conclusion  ;  and  with  all  the  facts  before  nie,  and  with  all  deference  to 
my  friend  Dr.  Wiiite,  I  do  not  believe  that  it  would  have  been  possible, 
if  we  had  talked  four  hours  instead  of  one,  for  him  to  have  changed 
our   minds   upon    that    question. 

c. 

MR.    WILLIAM    ALLEN    BUTLER's   OPINION. 

New  York,  June  4th,  1891. 
Charles  Butler,  Esq., 

President  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  Union  Theological  Seminary, 

Dear    Sir — As    requested    by  you    I    have    carefully   considered    the 

questions    arising    on    the    recent    action     of    the     General    Assembly    in 

reference   to  the    Rev.    Dr.    Briggs   and   the   Union  Theological  Seminary. 

Without   going   into   details    I   submit   a   summary  of  the  conclusions, 

which    it   seems   to    me    necessarily   follow   a   fair   view   of  the   facts : 

1.  The  Union  Theological  Seminary,  being  a  corporation  existing 
under  the  laws  of  New  York,  has  full  power  to  regulate  the  adminis- 
tration  of  its  affairs  pursuant  to  its  charter,  which  was  enacted  March 
27,  1839,  and  which  vests  the  government  of  the  seminary  in  a  Board 
of  Directors  of  twenty-eight  members,  one  half  of  whom  shall  be  cler- 
gymen and  the  other  half  laymen.  The  constitution  adopted  under  the 
charter  empowers  the  Board  of  Directors  to  ai)point  all  ]>rofessors,  fix 
their  salaries  and  determine  their  duties.  These  powei-s  have  never  been 
surrendered   or   impaired,    and   are   now    in   full    force    and   effect. 

2.  In  connection  with  the  reunion  of  the  differing  l)ranches  of  the 
Presbyterian  Church  in  1870  importance  was  attached  to  the  establish- 
ment of  harmonious  relations  between  the  several  Presbyterian  theologi- 
cal seminaries  and  the  General  Assembly  of  the  reunited  cliurch.  This 
was  in  no  wise  an  essential  element  in  the  reunion,  but  was  an  inci- 
dent of  the  general  plan.  In  aid  of  this  desired  end  and  especially  in 
the  interest  of  the  seminaries  under  the  ecclesiastic  supervision  of  the 
so-called  "Old  School"  Assembly,  whose  professors  were  ai)pointed 
directly  by  the  Assembly  and  not  Ijy  their  Boards  of  Directors,  and 
who  desired  relief  from  this  embarrassing  control,  it  was  jnojiosi'd  tliat 
the    General    Asscmbiv    shoubl    confer    on    liiose    seminaries    over    which    it 


556  APPENDIX. 

liad  proprietoi-sliip  and  control,  the  power  of  electing  their  own  pro- 
fessors, the  appointments  to  be  reported  to  the  Assembly,  and  no  ap- 
liointment  "to  be  considered  as  a  complete  election  if  disapproved  by 
a   majority   vote   of  the   Assembly." 

The  Union  Theological  Seminary,  by  a  minute  of  the  Board  of 
Directoi-s  passed  May  9,  1870,  after  reciting  that  it  had  been  formed 
before  the  disruption  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  and  belonged  to 
neither  of  its  branches,  and  was  administered  upon  its  own  independ- 
ent charter,  and  also  that  its  Board  of  Directors  was  "  desirous  of 
doing  all  in  their  power  to  establish  confidence  and  harmony  through- 
out the  whole  church  in  respect  to  the  education  of  its  ministry," 
and  tliat  the  appointment  of  professors  in  any  seminary  directly  by  the 
General  Assembly  was,  in  their  judgment,  objectionable,  resolved  to 
memorialize  the  General  Assembly  to  adopt  the  i)lan  above  referred  to 
in  the  exercise  of  their  proprietorship  and  control  over  the  several 
theological  seminaries,  and  agreed  in  case  of  its  adoption  to  conform 
to   the   same. 

The  General  Assembly  complied  with  tlie  request  and  recommended 
that  all  seminaries  controlled  by  the  Assembly  should  conform  to  the 
j)lan  as  proposed  by  the  Union  Theological  Seminary  (General  Assem- 
bly's  minutes,    1870;   pp.    62-64). 

3.  It  is  evident  that  by  this  action  the  Union  Theological  Semi- 
nary acquired  nothing.  It  received  no  benefit  or  advantage  from  the 
jjlan  adopted,  except  in  the  sense  of  having  promoted  the  particular 
interests  of  kindred  institutions  and  the  general  well  being  of  tiie 
church.  It  retained,  unimpaired,  the  power  of  appointment  of  its  pro- 
fessors as  an  inherent  part  of  its  corporate  franchise,  but  it  conferred 
on  the  General  Assembly,  by  way  of  gratuitous  concession  and  grant, 
the  power  to  disapprove  by  a  majority  vote  of  any  such  appointment. 
This  action  was  apparently  taken  without  any  consideration  of  the 
question  whether  the  surrender  or  delegation  of  corporate  power  which 
it  involved  was  within  the  scope  of  the  autliority  of  the  Board  of 
Directoi-s  under  the  charter  of  the  seminary.  Assuming  for  the  present 
tiiat  it  was  within  the  power  of  the  board,  the  transaction  as  finally 
made  constituted  a  compact  between  the  seminary  and  the  General 
Assembly,  by  wbich  tlie  latter  was  empowered  to  veto  tiie  apjiointment 
and  election  of  a  professor.  The  source  of  this  jiower  was  the  delega- 
tion    of    it    by    tiie    seminary    to    tlie    Asscanbly,    and    as    it     was   jjurely 


APPENDIX.  557 

voluntary,  it  did  not  involve  the  transfer  of  any  corporate  right,  and 
necessarily  stood  as  to  its  execution  upon  the  good  faith  and  continuing 
co-operation  of  the  respective  parties  to  it,  witliout  any  power  on  the  part 
of  either  to  compel  its  continued  performance  upon  any  hasis  of  accpiired 
right  recognizable  by  the  law. 

4.  In  the  practical  operation  of  the  arrangement,  the  annual  reports 
of  the  seminary  presented  to  the  Assembly  since  1870,  have  included  all 
matters  of  administration  and  among  these  the  appointments  and  elections 
of  professors  and  no  instance  has  occurred  of  any  disapproval  of  an  appoint- 
ment or  election. 

5.  The  concession  made  by  the  seminary  to  the  Assembly  of  the 
veto  power  under  the  circumstances  above  stated  was  so  far  in  derogation 
of  its  own  absolute  powers  that  it  cannot  be  held  to  grant  any  privilege 
beyond  its  precise  terms  and  these  must  be  strictly  pursued  by  the  As- 
sembly and  cannot  be  enlarged   by   any  implication. 

The  seminary  has  maintained  and  lias  acted  upon  tlie  view  that  the 
power  of  disapproval  given  by  it  to  the  General  Assembly  did  not  apply 
to  or  in  any  wise  afiect  the  right  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  sem- 
inary to  regulate  the  duties  of  the  professoi-s  whose  election  having  once 
become  complete  by  the  failure  of  the  Assembly  to  disapprove  of  their 
election,  constituted  them  thereafter  a  part  of  the  faculty  of  the  seminary 
to  perform  such  duties  of  instruction  as  might  be  designated  by  the  Board 
of  Directors  ;  the  assignment  of  new  duties  to  any  professor,  or  the  trans- 
fer of  a  professor  from  one  chair  to  another  chair,  or  to  a  new  chair, 
being  all  matters  of  corporate  administration  not  subject  to  any  review 
or  control  by  the  Assembly  and  in  no  way  coming  within  the  terms  of 
the  compact. 

G.  The  Assembly  which  recently  convened  at  Detroit  appeai-s  from  the 
published  reports  of  its  proceedings  to  have  adopted  a  different  view  of 
the  subject,  and  to  have  given  an  interpretation  to  the  compact  of  1870, 
which  extends  the  veto  power  so  as  to  make  it  applicable  not  only  to  ap- 
pointments and  elections  of  professors  as  declared  by  its  terms,  but  also 
to  the  case  of  the  transfer  of  a  professor  duly  elected,  and  not  disapproved 
l)y  the  Assembly,  from  one  chair  in  the  seminary  to  another  chair.  Act- 
ing upon  its  own  interpretation  and  construction,  the  Assembly,  by  a  ma- 
jority vote,  has  assumed  to  disapprove  of  the  transfer  of  Dr.  Briggs  from 
the  chair  of  Hebrew  and  Cognate  Languages  to  the  chair  of  Biblical 
Theology,  thus  asserting  a  like  power  in  resi)ect  to  the  action  of  the  Board 


558  APPENDIX. 

of  Directors  in  making  such  a  transfer  as  in  the  case  of  an  original  ap- 
pointment and  election  of  a  professor. 

7.  Without  discussing  at  present  the  question  of  the  validity  of  this 
action  of  the  Assembly,  it  is  enough  to  say  that  it  is  the  act  of  one  party 
to  an  agreement  upon  its  own  ex-parte  interpretation  and  construction  of  it, 
without  the  consent  of  the  other  party  and  in  violation  of  what  the  other 
party  claims  to  be  its  true  interpretation  and  construction.  It  is  simply 
the  case  of  an  assertion  and  an  attempted  exercise  of  a  power  claimed 
under  an  agreement  by  one  party  and  denied  by  the  other  party.  The 
seminary  is  not  bound  to  accept  the  construction  put  upon  the  contract 
by  the  Assembly  and  the  Assembly  is  powerless  to  enforce  its  action  by 
any  proceeding  or  process  affecting  the  right  of  the  seminary  to  continue 
Dr.  Briggs  as  its  professor  of  Biblical  Theology  or  the  right  of  Dr.  Briggs 
to  retain  the  professorship.  Holding  the  view  that  the  action  of  the  As- 
sembly is  not  within  the  scope  of  its  power  and,  therefore,  tdtra  vires, 
the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  seminary  must  regard  it  as  ineffectual  for 
any  purpose  relating  to   the  seminary  or  to   Dr.   Briggs. 

9.  As  between  the  seminary  and  Dr.  Briggs  the  case  is  different  and 
the  relation  is  one  of  contract  founded  on  a  valid  consideration  and  en- 
forceable at  law.  Having  been  elected  a  professor  and  his  election  not 
having  been  disapproved  by  the  General  Assembly  and  having  entered  on 
the  discharge  of  the  new  duties  devolved  upon  him,  as  a  professor  by  the 
Board  of  Directors,  he  is  entitled,  subject  to  the  terms  of  his  employment, 
to  the  enjoyment  of  his  office  under  his  agreement  with  the  seminary, 
any  breach  of  which  would  be  the  violation  of  a  contract  obligation. 
And  so  long  as  the  seminary  and  Dr.  Briggs  are  in  accord  on  this  point, 
no  third  party  can  intervene  to  annul  or  impair  the  existing  relation 
between  them. 

No  present  action,  tlierefore,  seems  to  be  required  on  the  part  of  the 
Board  of  Directors  eitlier  in  reference  to  the  General  Assembly  or  to  Dr. 
Briggs,  unless  the  board  should  think  proper  to  re-affirm  by  resolution,  its 
adherence  to  the  interpretation  of  the  arrangement  with  the  General  As- 
sembly which  it  has  heretofore  maintained  and  ui)on  wiiicli  it  aiteil  in 
its  transfer  of  Dr.  Briggs  from  the  chair  formerly  lilled  by  liiin  to  tliat 
of  which  he  is  now  the  imcumbent. 

Yours  truly, 

(Signed)  William  Allen  Butler. 


APPENDIX.  559 

D. 

In  giving  Mr.  Carter's  opinion  it  is  proper  to  give  also 
the  following  report  of  the  Executive  Committee,  presented 
to  the  Board  of  Directors  on  October  13,  1892,  recommending 
and  submitting  that  opinion : 

At  a  meeting  on  the  9th  of  June  last,  the  Executive  Committee 
having  heard  the  report  of  Mr.  E.  M.  Kingsley  concerning  his  special 
mission  to  Portland,  carefully  deliberated  as  to  tlie  course  to  be  pursued 
under  the  circumstances.  The  unanimous  conviction  of  the  committee 
was  that  some  reply  to  the  action  of  the  Assembly  should  be  prepared 
for  submission  to  the  Board  of  Directors.  As  our  minutes  show,  a  Sub- 
Committee  was  appointed  for  this  purpose  with  tlie  understanding  that 
informally  Dr.  Prentiss  should  be  consulted  in  the  preparation  of  the 
paper.  After  free  discussion,  it  was  agreed  that  while  we  have  hitherto 
wisely  abstained  from  seeking  a  legal  opinion  on  the  questions  involved 
in  our  case,  the  time  has  come  when  it  is  imperative  that  we  should 
know  Avhether  the  character  of  this  institution  is  imperilled,  as  has  been 
intimated,  by  the  existing  agreement  with  the  General  Assembly.  While 
the  Executive  Committee  does  not  feel  itself  authorized  officially  to  seek 
an  opinion,  the  unanimous  though  informal  conclusion  was  that  it  would 
be  very  desirable  that  the  Sub-Committee  should  secure  such  an  opinion 
from  some  lawyer  of  the  very  highest  standing.  In  tlie  informal  conference 
upon  this  matter,  several  names  of  conspicuous  and  able  lawyei-s  were 
mentioned,  but  the  desire  was  to  select  some  man  who  is  in  no  way, 
personally  or  ecclesiastically,  related  to  members  of  this  Board  or  to  the 
Presbyterian  Church.  The  name  of  James  C.  Carter,  Esquire,  answered 
all  these  conditions,  and  it  was  felt  that  his  independent  position  and 
his  very  high  standing  in  his  profession  would  make  his  opinion  conclusive 
with  all  reasonable  or  unprejudiced  minds.  Tlie  Sub-Committee  therefore 
secured  from  Mr.  Carter  his  opinion  upon  the  questions  involved  in  the 
present  relation  of  this  institution  to  the  General  Assembly,  which 
opinion  was  presented  to  the  Executive  Committee  on  Tuesday  the  27th 
inst.,  with  the  request  that  it  be  submitted  to  the  board. 

The  Executive  Committee  also  presents  herewith  the  official  copy  of 
the  action  of  the  General  Assembly  in  reply  to  our  memorial  and  would 
call   attention   to   the   character   of  the    language   used.     In   our   memorial 


560  APPEXDIX. 

we  did  not  ask  tlie  Assembly  to  "break"   a  compact,  but  only  "to  concur 
with  us  in  annulling  tlie  arrangement  of  1870." 

Notwithstanding  tlie  character  of  the  Assembly's  reply,  it  was  deemed 
best  that  our  response  thereto  should  be  kept  free  from  every  sign  of 
irritation,  and  should  calmly  and  clearly  state  our  deliberate  conclusion. 
This  paper,  unanimously  adopted  by  the  Executive  Committee,  is  now 
respectfully  submitted  to  the  board  for  its  consideration. 

Here  is  tlie  opinion  of  Mr.  Carter : 

OPINION    OF   JAMES   C.    CARTER,  ESQ. 

The  Union  Theological  vSeminary  in  the  City  of  New  York  was 
incorporated  by  Act  of  the  Legislature  of  the  State  of  New  York,  i)assed 
March  27th,  1839.  It  constituted  Thomas  McCauley  and  other  persons 
who  were  declared  by  the  first  section  of  the  act  to  be  the  present 
directors,  and  their  successors,  a  body  corporate  by  the  name  of  the  Union 
Theological  Seminary  in  the  City  of  New  York. 

It  is  declared  by  the  second  section  of  the  charter  as  follows:  — 

The  government  of  the  seminary  shall  at  all  times  be  vested  in  a 
Board  of  Directors,  which  shall  consist  of  twenty-eight  members,  one-half 
of  whom  shall  be  clergymen  and  the  other  half  laymen. 

Subsequent  to  the  incorporation  of  the  Seminary  a  constitution  and 
by-laws  were  adopted  by  the  Board  of  Directors.  Sections  3  and  4  of 
Article  1  of  the  Constitution  are  as  follows  : — 

Sec.  3.  In  order  to  carry  out  the  powers  vested  in  them  by  the 
act  of  incorporation,  the  Board  of  Directors  shall  have  authority  to  make 
their  own  by-laws  ;  hold,  manage  and  disburse  the  funds  of  the  seminary  ; 
appoint  all  officers,  professors  and  teachers ;  fix  their  salaries,  determine 
their  duties  ;  make  laws  for  the  regulation  and  government  of  the  institution  ; 
and,  in  general,  to  adopt  all  such  measures,  not  inconsistent  with  the 
provisions  of  the  said  act  (the  charter)  and  this  constitution,  as  the  interests 
of  the  seminary  may  require. 

Sec.  4.  The  board  shall  watch  over  the  fidelity  of  all  who  may  be 
employed  in  giving  instruction  ;  shall  judge  of  their  competency,  doctrines, 
morals  ;  and  shall  have  power  to  remove  any  officer,  professor  or  teacher 
from  office.  The  board  shall  also  exercise  a  general  supervision  over  tlie 
whole  seminary,  including  the  discipline  of  students  by  the  facidty. 

The  first  section  of  the  Second  Article  of  tlie  Constitution  is  as 
follows  : — 


APPENDIX.  561 

Sec.  1.  The  faculty  shall  consist  of  a  President  and  professors,  all 
of  whom  shall  be  ordained  ministers  of  the  Gospel,  and  all  of  whom 
shall  be  appointed  by  the  Board  of  Directors. 

These  are  the  only  provisions  of  the  charter  concerning  the  body  in 
which  the  power  of  government  is  lodged. 

On  the  16th  day  of  May,  1870,  the  Board  of  Directors  adopted 
resolutions  designed  to  be  a  Memorial  to  the  General  Assembly  of  the 
Presbyterian  Church  of  the  United  States,   which  were  as  follows  : — 

Resohecl,  That  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  Union  Theological 
Seminary,  being  all  ministers  and  elders  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  do 
hereby  memorialize  the  General  Assembly  to  the  following  effect: — 

That  so  far  as  the  election  of  professors  is  concerned,  the  Assembly 
will  commit  the  same  to  their  respective  Boards  of  Directors  on  the 
following  conditions,   viz.: — 

1st.  The  Board  of  Directors  of  each  Seminary  shall  be  authorized 
to  appoint  all  professors  for  the  same. 

2nd.  That  all  such  appointments  shall  be  reported  to  the  General 
Assembly,  and  no  such  appointment  shall  be  considered  a  complete  election 
if  disapproved  by  a  majority  vote  of  the  General  Assembly. 

Be  it  further  Metiolved,  That  if  this  plan  is  adopted  by  the  General 
Assembly  they  will  agree  to  conform  to  the  same,  the  Union  Tiieological 
Seminary  being  in  this  respect  on  the  same  ground  with  other  theological 
seminaries  of  the  Presbyterian  Church. 

The  General  Assembly  adopted  a  resolution  accepting  the  offer  of 
the  seminary  contained  in  the  foregoing  memorial  of  the  latter  body. 

On  the  8th  day  of  May,  1876,  Charles  A.  Briggs  was  elected  as 
professor  to  fill  the  Davenport  Chair  of  Hebrew  and  Cognate  Languages. 
His  election  was  not  disapproved  by  the  General  Assembly,  and  he  was 
continued  as  such  professor  until  the  11th  day  of  November,  1890,  when 
he  was  transferred  to  the  Edward  Robinson  Chair  of  Biblical  Theology 
by  the  following  resolutions,  passed  by  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the 
seminary  : 

Resolved,  That  Charles  A.  Briggs,  D.  D.,  be  transferred  from  the 
Davenport  Professorship  of  Hebrew*  and  Cognate  Languages  to  the  Edward 
Robinson   Chair  of  Biblical   Theology. 

In  the  By-laws  relating  to  the  action  of  the  Board  of  Directors,  it  is 
provided  as  follows : 

Sec.  5.  In  tlie  appointment  of  any  member  of  tlie  faculty,  a  nom- 
ination  shall   be    made   at   least   four   weeks   before   the   election. 

No  such  notice  was  deemed  necessary  to  the  transfer  of  Dr.  Briggs 
from  the  Davenport  to  the  Edward  Robinson  chair,  and  none  was  given. 


562  APPENDIX. 

Dr.  Briggs  was  inaugurated  on  the  20th  of  January,  1891,  when  he 
delivered  an   inaugural   address. 

No  new  duties  were  assigned  to  him  on  the  transfer  from  the  one 
chair  to   the  other. 

The  General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  church  is  not  an  incorpo- 
rated body,  but  is  a  representative  body  of  over  six  hundred  members 
chosen  annually  by  the  different  Presbyteries.  The  Assembly  meets  an- 
nually, and  continues  in  session  about  fifteen  days. 

There  are  twenty-eight  Directors  of  the  Board  of  the  Union  Theological 
Seminary.  Only  nine  of  the  present  directors  were  members  of  the  board 
in  1870 ;  and  only  six  of  that  nine  were  present  at  the  meeting  of  May 
16,  1870. 

Upon  the  foregoing  case  my  opinion  is  requested  on  the  following 
points  : 

First :  Had  the  General  Assembly  capacity  to  make  the  agreement 
referred  to  in  1870? 

Second  :  Had  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  Union  Theological  Sem- 
inary power  to  delegate  to  the  General  Assembly  the  absolute  authority  to 
thereafter  veto  the  appointment  for  election  of  a  professor  made  by  the 
Board  of  Directors  of  the  Union  Theological  Seminary? 

Third  :     If  not,   was  the   action  of  the   Board   illegal   and   void  ? 

Fourth  :  Is  the  present  Board  of  Directors  legally  or  morally  bound 
by  the  said  action  of  the   Board   in   1870? 

Fifth  :  If  such  action  of  the  Board  in  1870  was  illegal  or  void, 
what  action   should   be   taken   by   the   present   Board   in   relation  to  it? 

OPINION. 

If  the  offer  of  May  16,  1870,  contained  in  the  Memorial  of  the  Union 
Theological  Seminary  to  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  church, 
and  accepted  by  the  General  Assembly,  creates  an  obligation  binding  upon 
those  bodies,  or  either  of  them,  it  must  be  because  that  offer  and  its  ac- 
ceptance constitute  a  contract  between  those  bodies. 

Aside  from  the  question  of  the  power  of  the  seminary  to  enter  into 
any  contract  of  such  a  nature,  there  would  be  very  serious  obstacles  in 
the  way  of  any  conclusion  that  this  offer  and  its  acceptance  created  any 
contract  at  all.  It  would  not  be  easy  to  make  out  that  the  General  Assem- 
bly has  that  corporate  and  perpetual  existence  which  would  make  it  a 
person  in  the  eye  of  the  law  competent  to  become  a  party  to  such  a  con- 


APPENDIX.  563 

tract ;  and  it  certainly  was  not  the  intention  to  bind  the  individuals  com- 
posing any  i)aiticular  (General  Assembly  in  their  capacity  as  natural  persons. 
Nor  would  it  be  easy  to  show  what  valid  consideration  there  was  to 
sustain  the  supposed  t-ontract,  or  that  it  was  really  intended  by  the  parties 
to  impose  any  legal  obligation  upon  each  other.  The  offer  and  accept- 
ance appear  to  me  to  be  designed  rather  to  express  a  present  acquiescence 
in  a  line  of  policy,  and  a  willingness  to  follow  it  until  some  change  in 
opinions  should  take  place,  than  as  an  intent  to  create  a  perpetual  obliga- 
tion which  would  forever  bind  the  jiarties  even  though  one  of  them 
should  at  some  time  believe  that  a  further  continuance  of  it  would  be 
unwise. 

But  I  put  these  difficulties  aside,  in  view  of  the  presence  of  another 
which  seems  to  me  to  be  absolutely  insuperable.  Assuming  that  the  offer 
and  acceptance  were  intended  to  create  and  were  quite  sufficient  to  create, 
a  binding  contract,  if  the  seminary  had  the  legal  power  to  make  it,  every 
one  must  agree  that,  in  the  absence  of  any  such  power,  the  attempt  to  make 
such  a  contract  would  be  wholly  ineffectual. 

Did,  therefore,  the  directors  of  the  seminary  have  the  power  to  con- 
fer upon  the  General  Assembly  the  authority  of  vetoing  any  appointment 
which  they  might  make  to  a  professorship  ;  that  is  to  say,  the  power  to 
transfer  a  most  important  part  of  the  power  of  governing  the  seminary 
to  the  General  Assembly,  and,  to  that  extent,  to  divest  themselves  both 
of  that  power,  and  of  the  duty  attached  to  it  ? 

It  is,  as  it  seems  to  me,  too  plain  for  argument  that  they  never  pos- 
sessed any  such  authority.  Who  are  to  exercise  the  powers  of  a  corporate 
body  is  a  matter  which  the  Legislature  alone  can  determine  ;  and  upon 
looking  into  the  charter  of  the  seminary  we  find  the  following  provision, 
which  is  quite  decisive : 

Sec.  2.  The  government  of  the  seminary  shall  at  all  times  be  vested 
in  a  Board  of  Directors,  which  shall  consist  of  twenty-eight  members ; 
one-half  of  whom   shall  be  clergymen    and   the   other   half  laymen. 

There  would  be  no  insuperable  difficulty  in  permitting  this  board  to 
devolve  its  functions,  in  whole  or  in  part,  upon  others  ;  but  a  necessary 
requisite  in  an  authority  so  extraordinary  would  be  an  act  of  the  Legislature 
conferring  it  in  the  most  clear  and  unequivocal  language.  There  is  no 
pretense  that  such  an  authority  has  been  conferred  by  the  charter,  or  by 
any  other  legislative  act. 

Undoubtedly  the   Board   of  Directoi-s  in  the  discharge  of  any  of  their 


564  APPENDIX. 

duties  may  seek  and  obtain  the  advice  and  assistance  of  others.  But  they 
can  not  abdicate  any  of  their  official  duties,  in  whole  or  in  part.  The 
determination  of  the  fitness  of  any  candidate  for  the  office  of  professor  is 
a  part  of  the  government  of  the  seminary  ;  and  if  it  be  competent  to  the 
Board  of  Directors  to  clothe  the  General  Assembly  with  the  power  of  de- 
feating an  appointment  made  by  the  board,  by  the  expression  of  disapproval, 
it  is  competent  to  that  body  to  transfer  to  the  General  Assembly  the 
whole  power  of  appointment,  and  indeed  the  whole  power  of  governing 
the  seminary. 

Should  the  General  Assembly  veto  an  appointment  to  a  professorship 
made  by  the  Board  of  Directors,  and  ♦the  meml)ers  of  the  latter  body 
should  be,  nevertheless,  of  the  opinion  that  the  best  interest  of  the  sem- 
inary demanded  that  the  place  should  be  filled  by  the  candidate  thus 
rejected,  it  is  very  clear  that  they  should  not,  consistently  with  their 
official  duty,  acquiesce  in  the  rejection. 

It  may  be  that  it  would  be  a  wise  arrangement  to  make  the  seminary 
in  some  manner  subordinate  to  the  general  authority  of  the  Presbyterian 
church  ;   but   that   is   not  the   arrangement   made  by  its  present  charter. 

If  these  views  are  well  founded,  it  follows  that  the  attempt  to  make 
the  alleged  contract  was  not  only  ineffectual,  as  being  beyond  any  power 
conferred  upon  the  Board  of  Directors  by  the  charter,  but  was  illegal  and 
contrary  to  the  duty  of  the  members  of  the  board,  because  it  was  an  at- 
tempted surrender  of  a  duty  the  performance  of  which  they  had  taken 
upon  themselves  by  their  acceptance  of  the  office  of  director.  And  inas- 
much as  the  charters  of  all  corporations  are  given  upon  the  condition 
that  the  powers  conferred  by  them  shall  be  exercised  in  the  manner  pre- 
scribed, this  attempted  making  of  an  illegal  contract,  and  nil  subseijuent 
acquiescence  in  it  would  be  a  breach  of  the  condition,  and  subject  tlie 
seminary  to  the  hazard  of  a  forfeiture  by  judicial  decree  of  its  corporate 
existence. 

I   answer   the  particular   questions  submitted   to   me   as  follows  : 

1.  I  am  inclined  to  the  opinion  that  the  General  Assembly  had  no 
legal  capacity  to  make  the  contract  referred  to,  assuming  that  it  was  its 
intention  to  make  a  binding  contract ;  but  I  am  not  prepared  to  announce 
a  definite  conclusion  upon  this  point  for  tlie  reason  that  I  cannot  arrive 
at  one  witliout  a  fuller  statement  of  the  facts  relative  to  the  constitution, 
purpose  and  authority  of  that  body  tlian  is  contained  in  the  case  sub- 
mitted to  me. 


APPENDIX.  565 

2.  I  am  clearly  of  the  opinion  that  tlie  Board  of  Directors  of  the 
Union  Theological  Seminary  had  no  power  to  delegate  to  the  General 
Assembly   an   authority   to   veto   tlie   appointment   or   election  of  professors 

.  made  by  such  board  ;  and  that  any  such  aitpointment  or  election  could 
not  be  in  any  manner  deprived  of  its  efficacy  by  any  action  of  such  Gen- 
eral  Assembly. 

3.  I  am  clearly  of  the  opinion  that  the  action  of  the  Board  of  Direc- 
tors of  the  seminary  in  attempting  to  make  a  binding  contract  relative 
to  the  appointment  of  professors,  assuming  as  before,  that  such  was  the 
intent  of  the  offer  contained  in  the  Memorial  to  the  General  Assembly, 
was  illegal   and   void. 

4.  I  am  clearly  of  the  opinion  that  the  present  Board  of  Directors 
of  the  seminary  is  not  legally  bound  by  the  action  referred  to  of  the 
board  in  1870. 

I  do  not  profess  to  be  competent  to  advise  others  upon  moral  questions 
in  general,  but  I  think  I  may  safely  declare  in  this  instance  that  the 
present  members  of  the  Board  of  Directors  cannot  be  morally  bound  by 
an  act  of  its  predecessors  which  was  in  violation  of  the  duty  they  had 
taken   upon  themselves  by  accepting  the   office   of  director. 

5.  It  is,  in  my  opinion,  the  duty  of  the  present  Board  of  Directors 
to  disavow  any  intent  to  abdicate  their  functions,  or  to  delegate  them  to 
others ;  and,  to  that  end,  to  rescind  and  annul,  by  a  formal  vote,  the 
apparent  offer  contained  in  the  Memorial  of  1870,  to  the  General  Assem- 
bly, and  to  advise  the  latter  body  of  such  action. 

Signed,  James  C.  Carter. 

June   23,  1892. 

E. 

OPINION  OF  JUDGE   NO  All   DAVIS 

AS    TO    THE    POSITION    OP    UNION     THEOLOGICAL     SEMINARY    TOWARD     THE 
C4ENERAL    ASSEMBLY. 

Upon  a  careful  examination  of  the  Act  of  the  Legislature  of  the 
State  of  New  York  incorjiorating  the  Union  Theological  Seminary  in  the 
city  of  New  York,  and  of  the  several  acts  amendatory  thereto,  and  of  the 
constitution  and  by-laws  of  said  corporation,  in  connection  with  the  Me- 
morial presented  by  the  directors  of  said  seminary  to  the  Genei-al  Assembly 
of  tlie  Presbyterian  Church  of  the  United  States,  in  May,  1870,  an<l  the 
action   of  such   General    Assembly  thereupon,  together   with   the  memoran- 


566  APPENDIX. 

diim  and  argument  of  John  J.  McCook,  Esq.,  presented  to  the  hite  Gen- 
eral  Assembly,   I    have   reached   the  following  conclusions   of  law : 

1.  That  by  the  Act  of  incorporation  of  said  seminary,  commonly  called 
its  charter,  all  ]iower  of  government  and  control  of  said  seminary  is  wholly 
vested  in  its  Board  of  Directors.  The  second  section  of  the  Act  is  in 
these  words : 

Section  2.  The  government  of  the  seminary  shall  at  all  times  be 
vested  in  a  Board  of  Director,  which  shall  consist  of  twenty-eight  mem- 
bers, one-half  of  wliom  shall  be  clergymen  and  the  other  lialf  laymen. 
This  grant  of  power  is  broad,  exhaustive,  and  exclusive.  It  neither  recog- 
nizes nor  permits  any  superior  governmental  power,  that  can  dictate, 
control,  or  limit  the  action  of  the  Board  of  Directors  in  the  exercise  of 
what  is  called  by  the  "Act"  "the  government  of  the  Seminary."  The 
directors  cannot  abdicate  this  power  of  government  in  favor  of  any  other 
body  or  person.  They  can,  of  course,  appoint  and  act  through  agents 
and  servants  whom  they  may  select,  and  to  whom  they  may  give  tlie  &nb- 
oirlinate  functions  necessary  to  carry  into  execution  their  own  powers  of 
government,  because  that  course  is  simply  a  mode  of  efficiently  executing 
their  own  authority. 

The  third  section  of  Article  One  of  the  Constitution  (as  it  is  called) 
correctly  defines  the  power  of  the  Directors  in  these  words :  "  Sec.  3. 
In  order  to  carry  out  the  powers  vested  in  them  Ijy  the  Act  of  Incor- 
poration, the  Board  of  Directors  shall  have  authority  to  make  their  own 
by-laws  ;  liold,  manage,  and  disburse  the  funds  of  the  Seminary  ;  appoint 
all  officers,  professoi-s,  and  teachers ;  fix  their  salaries  ;  determine  their 
duties"  .  .  .  .;  and  the  fourtli  section  declares  that  "Tlie  board  shall 
watcli  over  the  fidelity  of  all  who  may  be  employed  in  giving  instruction, 
shall  judge  of  their  competency,  doctrine,  and  morals,  and  sliall  have 
power  to  remove  an  officer,  professor,  or  teacher  from  office"    .... 

Tlie  first  section  of  Article  Two  provides  that  the  Faculty  shall  consist 
of  a  President  and  professors,  all  of  whom  shall  be  ordained  ministers  of 
the  Gospel,  and  all  of  whom  shall  be  appointed  by  the  Board  of  Directors. 
And  section  five  of  tlie  by-laws  prescribes  tlie  deliberation  with  which  the 
appointment  of  any  member  of  the  Faculty  shall  be  approached  and  con- 
ducted ;  and  section  eleven  defines  the  mode  in  which  the  by-laws  may 
be  changed. 

All  these  provisions  of  the  Constitution  and  by-laws  define  and  ac- 
centuate the   ])owers   of  the    Director  under  the  charter  and  c.vrliidc  their 


APPENDIX.  567 

exercise  by  any  other  body,  with  or  without  the  consent  of  the  board. 
It  cannot  be  doubted  tliat  tlie  power  of  appointing  the  Faculty  and  its 
several  members,  stands  in  the  front  rank  of  all  the  authority  conferred 
by  the  charter  upon  the  board  who  are  to  act  and  speak  as,  and  for 
the  corporation.  The  Facility  are  the  essential  elements  of  the  corporate 
vitality  and  usefulness.  Whoever  can  appoint  them,  holds  in  his  or  their 
hands  the  effective  utility  of  the  body  corporate  ;  every  act  or  attempt  of 
the  directors  to  divest  themselves  of  that  power  and  confer  it  upon  another 
body,  or  subordinate  it  to  the  will  or  judgment  of  another,  or  make  its 
effective  use  so  conditional  upon  such  will  or  judgment  of  others,  that  its 
exercise  by  the  corporate  board  is  dependent  upon  the  "veto"  or  sic  volo 
of  such  other,  is  utterly  void  and  not  only  ultra  vires,  which  may  be  simply 
an  excess  of  power,  but  is  incurably  void  for  its  utter  lack  of  autliority, 
and  its  unwarranted  conflict  with  a  plain  statute. 

In  my  opinion,  therefore,  the  resolution  of  the  Board  which  handed 
over  to  the  General  Assembly  the  vital  and  principal  function,  without  the 
exercise  of  which  the  objects  and  purposes  of  the  corporation  could  not  be 
made  or  kept  alive  and  effective,  as  the  act  of  the  Legislature  clearly 
intended,  was  void  cul  initio,  and  has  continued  to  be  void  during  the 
whole  of  its  existence.  The  Legislature  has  not  created  a  corporation  for 
religious  instruction,  whose  Faculty,  that  is  to  say,  whose  instructors,  shall 
be  appointed  or  controlled,  or  their  appointment  prevented  or  forbidden, 
by  some  other  religious  body,  however  wise  and  noble  it  may  be,  other 
than  that  which  the  Act  itself  brings  into  corporate  existence.  It  is  true 
the  directoi-s  may  consult  and  take  advice  in  respect  to  their  appointees 
with  whomsoever  they  like,  and  may  act  upon  such  advice  in  making  or 
refusin(j  to  make  any  appointment,  but  the  ultimate  and  creative  act  must 
be  their  own,  and  they  can  confer  no  power  upon  another  corporation 
or  person  to  veto  and  thereby  prevent  tlie  operation  of  their  own  ap- 
pointment. 

It  is  asserted  and  elaborately  urged  that  some  sort  of  contractual  re- 
lation sprang  up  between  the  corporation  and  the  General  Assembly  and 
other  like  corporations,  by  means  of  which  the  Seminary  is  bound  in 
perpetuam  to  this  surrender  of  its  most  vital  function  to  the  General  As- 
sembly. There  is  no  principal  of  law  upon  which  such  an  idea  can 
stand.  First,  there  is  no  contract,  from  the  utter  lack  of  power  to  make 
one  ;  all  parties  knew,  or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  were  bound  to  know, 
that  there  could   be   no   such   contract.     Second,  the  abdication  of  a  vital 


568  APPENDIX. 

corporate  function  by  one  corporate  body  to  another,  is  not  the  subject  of 
contract,  where  the  nature  of  the  power  is  sucli,  that  without  its  exercise 
by  its  legislative  grantee,  the  function  cannot  be  used  as  the  Legislature 
has  prescribed.  No  corporation  can  contract  with  another  that  the  latter 
may  vdo,  and  thereby  prevent  tlie  choice  of  its  effective  officers,  when 
chosen  by  the  board  or  body  to  whom  a  charter  has  given  the  sole  power 
or  right  of  choice.  To  admit  the  idea  that  a  loncjcr  or  shorter  submission 
to  such  an  attempt  hinds  the  submitting  corporation  by  perpetual  contract, 
introduces  an  unheard  of  element,  worse  than  that  of  putting  corporate 
functions  into  a  trust  held  by  one  corporation  for  the  benefit  of  many. 

The  government  that  grants  the  power  in  such  a  case  cannot  be  stop- 
ped by  such  an  abuse  of  its  use,  and  no  contract  of  the  parties  can  be 
asserted  in  answer  to  an  action  to  annul  the  charter. 

The  parties  to  such  a  contract  are  in  i-Mvi  delicto,  and  neither  can 
allege  the  contract  as  a  defense  against  the  State. 

Past  acts  in  violation  of  corporate  powers  may  sometimes  be  condoned, 
as  between  jxirties  to  them,  where  equities  arise  from  valuable  considera- 
tions paid,  or  conditions  are  changed  so  that  great  prejudice  may  arise 
from  the  avoidance  of  such  acts,  but  in  no  case  can  any  corporation  for 
public  uses  compel  another  to  continue  to  violate  the  plain  requirements 
of  a  statute,  because  it  has  wrongfully  or  ignorantly  violated  them  in  the 
past ;  and  least  of  all  will  the  law  imply  a  contract  to  compel  one  Board 
of  Directors,  as  in  this  case  to  violate  a  statute  in  performing  a  corporate 
duty,  because  some  former  boards  have  done  so.  The  repudiation  in  tliis 
case  of  any  sort  of  action  of  former  boards  which  abdicated  their  absolute 
and  exclusive  power  to  appoint  the  Faculty  of  the  Seminary,  is  simply  a 
return  to  an  obedience  of  the  law  of  their  being. 

I  cannot,  therefore,  bring  ray  mind  to  doubt  that  the  appointment  of 
Professor  Briggs,  over  which  tlie  question  has  arisen,  was  and  is  lawful 
and  effective,  notwithstanding  the  action  of  the  General  Assembly. 

Noah  Davis. 
New  York.  October  28.  1891. 


Through  inadvertence,  and  much  to  my  regret,  the  fol- 
lowing important  paper,  prepared  by  Dr.  Hastings  and 
adopted  by  the  board  Nov.  17,  1891,  in  answer  to  the 
second  paper  of  the  General  Assembly's  Committee  of  Confer- 
ence, was  omitted  in  my  History.  It  should  have  apjieared 
on  page  170,  immediately  after  the  Conference  Committee's 
second  paper.  G.  L.  P. 

To  THE  General  Assembly's  Committee  of  Conference, 

Dear  Brethren: — After  due  consideration  of  the  second  paper  wliicli 
you  submitted  to  us,  we  desire,  first  of  all,  to  recognize  the  Christian 
courtesy  with  which  you  have  discharged  the  delicate  and  difficult  duty 
entrusted  to  you  by  the  General  Assembly.  "VVe  believe  that  y(ni  have 
done  all  that  could  be  done  under  the  circumstances,  "debarred  as  you 
were  from  making  any  recommendations  which  would  involve  a  denial 
of  the    right   of  the    Assembly   to   do    what   it   did." 

I.  Before  considering  the  proposition  contained  in  your  second 
paper,  we  desire  to  put  oui-selves  right  with  regard  to  certain  iiaferences 
which  we  fear  might  otherwise  be  drawn  from  the  language  used  iu 
your   communication. 

(a).  You  speak  of  the  "  tenm^  of  the  Agreement  between  the  General 
Anaemhli/  and  the  Srniinarle.^  under  its  care"  as  if  tliey  were  the  same  in 
ever}'   case. 

We  do  not  so  understand  it.  These  terms  seriously  differ,  and  of 
course  they  do  not  concern  us  in  the  least  except  just  so  far  as  they 
coincide  with  the  terms  of  agreement  between  Union  Seminary  and  the 
General  Assembly.  One  of  the  terms  of  agreement  between  the  (General 
Assembly  and  .\uburn  Heminary,  for  example,  is  that  the  election  of 
any  Professor  in  that  Institution  shall  be  "primarily  conditioned  upon 
the  approval  of  the  Assembly,"  and,  without  going  into  details,  the 
case  is  still  stronger  with  reference  to  Princeton.  Your  language  seems 
to  us  therefore  misleading,  and  likely  to  place  us  in  a  false  position 
before   the   Christian   public. 

{()).  You  say,  "  It  is  manifest  that  we  hold  an  interpretation  of  the 
terms  of  agreement  between  the  (Jcneral  Assembly  and  the  Seminaries 
under  its  care,  widely  ditierent  from  that  held  by  the  Assembly  under 
whose  authority  this  Committee  is  now  acting"  :  and  that  "you  cannot, 
even  were  you  .so  disposed,  change  the  action  of  the  body  you  represent, 
with     regard    to    Professor    Briggs."      We    desire    to     expres.s    our    strong 


conviction  that,  for  this  state  of  things  we  are  in  no  way  responsible. 
Had  the  Assembly,  through  its  ".Standing  Committee  on  Theological 
Seminaries,"  asiied,  or  consented  to  receive,  our  view  of  the  question 
of  a  transfer,  as  the  other  party  in  the  case,  the  unhappy  difficulty 
might  perhaps   have  been   avoided. 

(e).  You  say,  "We  are  embarrassed  by  the  action  of  your  Board 
taken  in  seeming  disregard  of  the  authority  of  the  Assembly,  and  thus 
del)arring  us  from  making  any  recommendations  which  do  not  involve  a 
denial  of  the  right  of  the  Assembly  to  do  wliat  it  did.  Some  conces- 
sions, not  of  principle,  but  with  reference  to  modes  of  action,  must  be 
made,  in  order  to  place  the  matter  of  interpretation  at  issue,  before  the 
General   Assembly   in   the   future,   for   an   amicable   settlement." 

The  action  to  which  you  refer  we  understand  to  be  the  Resolution 
of  this  Board  passed  at  its  meeting  on  the  5th  of  June  last,  to  tlie  efiect 
that,  "  After  having  taken  legal  advice,  and  after  due  consideration,  this 
Board  of  Directors  see  no  reason  to  change  their  views  on  the  subject 
of  the  transfer  of  Dr.  Briggs,  and  feel  bound  in  the  discharge  of  their 
duties,  under  the  charter  and  constitution,  to  adhere  to  the  same."  The 
General  Assembly,  we  readily  admit,  is  in  point  of  dignity  a  body  supe- 
rior to  this  Board,  but  it  is  not  in  any  wise  superior  in  point  of  authority 
as  touching  the  agreement  of  1870.  Union  Seminary  was  the  first  party 
to  that  arrangement,  and  its  rights  and  authority  are  in  this  matter,  we 
repeat,  in  no  wise  inferior  to  those  of  the  Assembly.  The  intimation 
therefore  that  we  seemed  to  act  "in  disregard  of  the  authority  of  the 
General  Assembly,"  strikes  us  as  unwarranted  and  unjust.  The  authority 
of  the  General  Assembly  as  the  supreme  judicatory  of  the  Church,  in 
all  matters  brought  before  it  in  due  course  for  its  determination,  in  our 
opinion,  is  something  wholly  distinct  and  different  in  kind,  from  its 
authority  as  one  of  two  parties  to  an  agreement.  The  other  party  to 
such  an  agreement  must  have  equal  authority  in  the  case.  Both  parties 
are  on  a  gi'ound  of  equality  in  this  respect.  If  either  jjarty  showed  a 
disregard  for  the  authority  of  tlie  other,  we  cannot  admit  that  it  was 
Union    Seminary. 

{d).  This  appears  all  the  more  forcil)ly  when  we  read  in  your  jjaper  tliis 
frank  admission,  "We  also  find  from  your  statements  that  you  did  not  elect 
Professor  Briggs  to  the  cliair  of  Biblical  Theology  under  the  conditions 
prescribed  by   your  laws,  and  observed   in   all  other  cases  of  election." 

Inasmuch  as  we  are  the  only  body  tiiat  can  elect  a  Professor  in 
Union   Seminar}',   and  as  he  must  be  cliosen,  if  really  or  rightly  elected, 


in  accordance  with  the  laws  of  tlie  Institution,  does  it  not  tollow  tliat 
if  he  was  not  elected  according  to  our  laws,  he  was  not  elected  at  all'.' 
When  therefore  the  General  Assembly  insisted  that  he  was  elected  a 
Professor,  and  on  tliat  ground  proceeded  to  disapprove  of  his  election, 
was  it  not,  to  say  the  least,  doing  what  a  knowledge  of  the  facts  would 
have  prevented  it  from  doing?  While  we  impute  to  the  Assembly  no 
wrong  intention  in  the  matter,  we  cannot  admit  that  our  action  showed 
the   slightest   disregard   of  its   authority. 

II.  The  proposition  which  you  lay  before  us  would  involve  the 
entire  surrender  of  our  interpretation  of  the  agreement  of  1870.  As  that 
agreement  was  prepared  and  proposed  by  this  Board  and  not  by  tlie 
Assembly,  we  feel  that  our  interpretation  of  it  deserves  great  con- 
sideration. 

Our  reasons  for  our  insistence  upon  the  distinction  between  a  transfer 
and  an  election  or  appointment  are  well  known.  These  reasons  seem 
to   us  conclusive.     They   are : 

1st.  The  understanding  and  usage  of  this  Board  for  tlie  last  twentv 
years. 

2nd.  The  provision  in  the  by-laws  of  our  Seminary  which,  as  vou 
acknowledge,    clearly  justifies   the   distinction    upon    which    we    insist. 

3rd.  The  legal  opinion  from  very  high  authority  which  was  sub- 
mitted  to   you   confirming   our   view. 

The  principle  involved  has  recently  received  a  striking  illustration 
to  which  we  called  vour  attention.  Mr.  Balfour  has  been  transferred 
within  the  British  Cabinet  from  one  department  to  another  entirely 
different,  without  that  resignation  and  re-election  to  Parliament  which, 
according  to  British  usage,  is  necessary  in  case  of  an  original  appoint- 
ment to  the  Cabinet.  It  was  decided  that  as  Mr.  P.alfour  was  transferred 
and  not  appointed,  the  usual  formality  of  resignation  and  re-election 
was   not   necessary. 

We  most  respectfully  submit  that  yoiu-  Committee  has  not  met  any 
of  these  reasons  for  our  view  of  the  meaning  of  the  arrangement  of 
1870.  You  ask  us  to  regard  the  transfer  of  Dr.  Briggs  as  an  original 
election  in  violation  of  our  usage,  of  our  by-laws,  of  the  best  legal  lulvice 
we  could  obtain,  and  in  view  of  a  recent  i)recedent  from  the  highest 
Parliamentary  authority  in  the  world.  We  recognize  the  fact  that  you 
disavow  any  purpose  to  induce  us  "to  surrender  or  deny  any  of  our  real 
or  supposed  rights  under  our  interpretation  of  the  Agreement  of  1870." 
But    what   you    rejilly   ask   of  us   we   find   it  quite  impo.ssible  to  regard  in 


any  other  light  tliaii  an  absohite  surrender  of  rights  to  maintain  which 
is  to  us  a  saci'ed  obligation  to  the  past,   to  the  present  and  to  the  future. 

Again.  The  course  wliicli  you  suggest  requires  action  which,  frona 
our  point  of  view,  we  deeply  feel  would  be  utterly  inconsistent.  This 
Board  on  tlie  oth  of  June  did  not  act  hastily,  or  without  the  most 
careful  cfinsideration.  AVe  had  committed  ourselves  in  honor  to  our 
venerable  President,  Dr.  Butler,  the  munificent  founder  of  the  chair  of 
Biblical  Theology  ;  we  had  committed  ourselves  in  honor  to  Dr.  Briggs 
whose  teacliing  in  tliis  very  Department  we  had  watched  and  known  for 
the  last  ten  years ;  and  we  had  committed  ourselves  in  honor  to  our 
students   and   friends   and   to   the    Christian    public. 

AVe  cannot  lielp  tiiinking  that  if  we  had  been  consulted  before, 
instead  of  after,  the  action  of  the  General  Assembly,  its  decision  might 
liave  been  different.  But  now,  while  we  do  not  see  that  your  honorable 
Committee  could  have  done  more  than  you  have  done ;  on  the  other 
hand,  we  do  not  see  that  we  could  honorably,  or  with  a  clear  conscience, 
have   done   otherwise   than   Ave   have  done. 

We  have  been  widely  and  greatly  misrepresented.  We  have  been 
accused  of  defying  the  (ieneral  Assembly,  and  of  breaking  our  agreement. 
Both  charges  are  alike  unfounded  and  unjust.  We  simply  adhered  to 
the  position  which  we  had  conscientiously  taken,  before  any  action  of 
the  General  Assembly  in  the  case,  as  we  felt  bound  in  honor  to  do.  It 
was  no  feeling  of  defiance,  but  only  the  sense  of  duty  which  governed 
our   action. 

As  to  the  Agreement  of  1870,  as  we  assured  your  Committee,  we 
have  heretofore  exju-essly  declined  to  consider  the  question  of  its  legality, 
out  of  resj)ect  to  the  Assembly  and  to  your  Committee,  though  the  action 
at  Detroit  compelled  us  to  see  that  in  due  time  this  important  question 
must  receive  our  calm  and  deliberate  attention.  Though  we  therefore 
are  unable  to  agree,  yet  we  trust  that  the  conference  has  already  se- 
cured this  advantage,  at  least,  that  you,  and  through  you,  the  General 
Assembly,  will  have  a  better  understanding  of  our  position  and  of  the 
reasons  of  our  action,  and  we  hope  that,  upon  further  conference,  some 
common  ground  may  be  found  upon  which  you  and  we  may  conscien- 
tiously stand,   and  which   may  prove  acceptable  to  the  General   Assembly. 

Of  one  thing  we  would  have  you  assured,  that,  whatever  conclusion  we 
may  reach,  we  shall  honestly  seek,  not  only  to  promote  the  interests  of  I  nion 
Seminary,  but  also  the  welfare  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  witli  whicii 
we  are  identified  bv  our  constitution   and  bv  our  whole  historv. 


INDEX. 


A. 

Action  of  Joint  Committee  on  Re- 
union, 12-18. 

Adams,  Dr.  William,  12 ;  head  of 
standing  committee,  20  ;  member  of 
joint  committee,  21  ;  his  opinion 
of  election  of  iirofessors  by  Assem- 
bly, 2()  ;  report  at  board  meeting, 
ottering  the  veto  to  the  Assembly, 
36  ;  chairman  of  standing  commit- 
tee on  Theological  Seminaries,  55  ; 
Dr.  Hitchcock's  tribnte  to  him,  87-89; 
his  action  while  chairman  of  Com- 
mittee on  Seminaries  in  1870,  173  ; 
liis  utterances  on  same,  175  ;  sketch 
of  his  life  and  character,  217-221. 

Agnew,  B.  L. :  member  of  Arbitration 
Committee,  288. 

Alexander,  Archibald,  24. 

Amherst  College  :  installs  Dr.  H.  P. 
Smith  as  college  pastor  and  professor 
of  Biblical  Literature,  335. 

Arbitration  Committee :  report  of,  to 
Assembly  of  1893,  287-288. 

Auburn  Seminary  :  its  relation  to 
Assembly,  140 ;  under  control  of 
Synod,  145  ;  opinion  of  its  lawyer, 
227  ;  bylaw  of  the  Seminary  quoted, 
227  ;  its  charter  distinctis'ely  Pres- 
byterian, 232. 

B. 

Backus,  Dr.  John  C,  20. 
Bacon,  Lord;  quotation  from,  73. 
Barnes,    Albert,    10 ;    tribute   paid   to 

him  by  the  Assembly  of  1870,  20  ; 

his   wisdom    and    uprightness,    70 ; 

tried  for  heresy,  323. 
Bartlett,    Dr.  :     extract    from  speech 

at  Detroit,  105-110. 
Beatty,   Dr.  Charles  C. :  at  Assembly, 

137  ;  sketch  of  his  life  and  character, 

217-221. 


Beecher,  Dr.  Willis  J. :  one  of  the  six 
joint  debaters  in  the  Presbyterian 
Review  on  Higher  Criticism,  329. 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward  :  at  Indianapo- 
lis, 455,  477,  481,  486,  497,  498. 

Booth,  Dr.  R.  R. :  chairman  com- 
mittee on  Theological  Seminaries 
at  Baltimore,  62. 

Breckinridge,  Judge:  his  sudden  deatli, 
68-122. 

Booth,  William  A.,  36:  the  memoran- 
dum on  arbitration  as  presented  at 
conference  meeting,  2(55-2()8  ;  bifi- 
graphical  sketch  of,  387  ;  minute 
adopted  on  his  death  by  Board  of 
Directors,  388. 

Breckinridge,  Dr.  Robert  J.,  21  :  hos- 
tility to  reunion  ;  his  l)iting  criticism 
on  the  reunion  report,   318. 

Brown,  Francis,  D.  D.:  transferred  to 
Davenport  Professorshij)  of  Hel)rew 
and  the  Cognate  Languages,  340  ; 
paper  by,  339-345. 

Brown,  Rev.  William  Adams  :  Roose- 
velt Professor  of  Systematic  Theol- 
ogy, 339. 

Brown,  John  A.:  gift  to  endowment 
fund,  86. 

Brown,  James  :  gift  to  endowment 
fund,  80  ;  Mr.  McCook's  reference  to 
it,  85  ;  generous  benefactor  of  Cnion 
Seminary,  86 ;  sketch  of  his  life  and 
character,  89-92. 

Brown,  John  Crosby :  President  of 
Board  of  Directors,  90  ;  speech  at 
inauguration  of  Dr.  Hall  as  presi- 
dent of  the  Faculty,  364-366. 

Briggs,  Kev.  Charles  A.,  I). D.  :  trans- 
ferred from  chair  of  Hebrew  to  that 
of  Bil)lical  Tlieology,  50-54;  dis- 
satisfaction with  iiis  views,  ()6  ;  de- 
fended by  Professor  H.  P.  Smith, 
105  ;  professor  at  Union  Semi- 
nary, 159  ;  utterances  on  induc- 
tion to  ciiair  of  Biblical  Theology, 


570 


INDEX. 


162  ;  resolutions  passed  by  Board  of 
Directoi-s  upon  his  transfer,  167  ; 
satistiictorily  answei^s  their  questions, 
173  ;  attacked  by  a  "Leading  Eve- 
ning Paper"  of  JS^ew  York,  183  ;  at- 
tends Assembly  at  Portland,  Oregon, 
256  ;  his  re-election  as  a  director  of 
(lerrnan  Theological  Seminary  dis- 
api)roved  by  Assembly  of  1893,  292  ; 
brief  sketch  of  his  life,  312-315  ; 
letter  of  his  when  a  boy  quoted,  312  ; 
a  student  at  the  University  of  Vir- 
ginia, 312-313;  founder  of  the  Y. 
M.  C.  A.  in  the  Univei-sity,  313  ;  a 
member  of  the  Seventh  Regiment 
New  York  Volunteers  in  the  Civil 
War,  313;  enters  Union  Seminary 
as  a  student  for  the  ministry,  313  ; 
goes  abroad  in  1866,  313;  letter 
to  Dr.  H.  B.  Smith  quoted,  313-314  ; 
pastor  of  First  Presbyterian  C'hurch, 
Roseville,  New  Jersey,  314 ;  in- 
augurated professor  at  Union  Sem- 
inary, 314  •  his  inaugural  address  on 
Exegetical  Theology,  314 ;  trans- 
ferred to  chair  of  BilMical  Theology, 
314  ;  his  memorable  address,  Janu- 
ary 20,  1891,  315-317  ;  his  con- 
nection with  The.  Presbyterian  Re- 
view, 319  ;  his  trial  for  heresy,  320- 
323  ;  his  own  statement,  prepared 
especially  for  this  volume  by  request 
of  Dr.  Prentiss.  328-334;  debate 
with  Dr.  Patton  by  invitation  of 
Presbyterian  Union  of  New  York, 

330  ;  attacked  in  Mail  and  Express, 

331  ;  ofler  to  resign  refused  by  di- 
rectors, 334  ;  severs  his  connection 
with  the  Presbyterian  Church  and 
becomes  an  Episcopal  minister,  334; 
librarian  at  Union  in  1876,  354 ;  his 
letter  to  directors  of  Union  accepting 
the  chair  of  Biblical  Theology,  535- 
537 ;  his  inauguration  to  same  and 
charge  delivered  to  him  by  Dr. 
Frazer,  537-543;  questions  submitted 
to  Dr.  Briggs  by  the  Board  of  Direc- 
tors, and  his  answers,  543-544. 

Butler,  Charles,  22 :  at  directors' 
meeting,  36  ;  president  and  one  of 
the  founders  of  Union  Seminary, 
222  ;  letter  to,  from  Messi-s.  Brown, 
James,  Dodge  and  Jesup  with  gift 
of  $175,000,  285  ;  death  of,  364  ; 
sketch  of  his  life  and  public  services, 
427-531  ;  his  marriage,  429  ;  visits 
the  Great  West,  429-433  ;  makes  his 


permanent  home  in  New  York,  433; 
fight  with  repudiation  in  Michigan, 
described  in  letters  to  his  wife,  435- 
450  ;  his  care  for  Union  Seminary, 
451,  452  ;  the  fight  with  repudiation 
in  Indiana,  452-498  ;  his  services  to 
Union  Seminary,  500,  and  to  New 
York  University,  500  ;  extracts  from 
the  funeral  address  delivered  by 
Rev.  Dr.  Vincent,  501-505  ;  death 
of  his  son  Ogden,  505  ;  message  of 
condolence   from    Thomas    Carlyle, 

506  ;  his  many  distinguished  friends, 

507  ;  letters  from  Mr.  Fronde,  508- 
512 ;  letter  from  Goldwin  Smith, 
513  ;  letters  from  Carlyle,  515-522, 
and  fac  simile  of  one,  523  ;  his  home 
at  Fox  Meadow,  525  ;  description  of 
his  life  there,  by  Col.  McLean,  52G- 
529;  minute  on  his  death  adopted  by 
LTnion  Seminary,  529-531. 

Butler,  William  Allen  :  his  opinion  on 
the  action  of  the  General  Assembly 
in  the  matter  of  Dr.  Briggs  and 
Union  Theological  Seminary,  555- 
558. 

c. 


Carlyle,  Thomas  :  letter  of  condo- 
lence to  Charles  Butler  on  the  death 
of  his  son,  506  ;  letters  to  Charles 
Butler,  515-518,  522,  523. 

Carlyle,  John  A.  :  letter  to  Charles 
Butler,  521. 

Carter,  James  C. :  opinion  on  the  rela- 
tion of  Union  Seminary  to  the  As- 
sembly, 560-565. 

Chalmers,  Dr.  :  connection  with  the 
"Veto  Law"  in  Scotland,  160. 

Conference  Committee :  personnel  of 
committee,  163 ;  their  fii-st  paper, 
168  ;  their  second  paper,  169  ;  papers 
presented  to  them  by  Board  of  Di- 
rectors of  Union  Seminary,  172; 
statement  to  the  public,  179;  arl)itra- 
tion  projtosed,  then  withdrawn, 
memorandum  by  Messrs.  Hastings 
and  Booth,  264-267  ;  copy  of  i)aper 
first  presented  by  Mr.  Durant,  271  ; 
coi)y  of  Mr.  l)urant's  paper  as 
revised   by  committee,   272. 

('rosby,  Howard,  70  ;  words  from  his 
memorable  speech  of  May,  1869, 
(juoted,  253. 


INDEX. 


571 


Colnmbia  University  :  students  of 
Union  admitted  to  special  courses, 
840,  841;  de.i,'reesof  M.  A.  and  Ph.D. 
conferred,  348. 

Cox,  Hon.  James  B.:  letter  to,  from 
Dr.  Nelson,  138. 

Cummings,  Asa  :  many  years  editor  of 
tile  "Christian  Mirror",  247. 

Curtiss,  Dr.  S.  Ives:  of  the  ( 'ongrega- 
tional  Seminary  of  Chicago,  329. 

D. 

Danville  Seminary  :  report  to  the 
Oene-ral  Assenil)ly  in  1S71,  225. 

Davis,  Judge  Noah,  of  New  York,  279; 
opinion  on  relation  of  luiion  Semi- 
nary to  the  Assembly,  565-5(58. 

Day,  Henry  :  letter  to  Mr.  J.  C.  Brown, 
84,  85  ;  speech  to  Committee  of 
Conference,  273-276  •,  biographical 
sketch  of,  391:  Dr.  Hastings'  tribute 
to  liim,  394. 

Design  of  the  present  volume  :  to  give 
an  account  of  agreement  of  1870, 81 1 . 

Dickey,  Dr. :  director  of  Union  Semi- 
nary and  Commissioner  to  Assembly, 
100. 

Discussion  of  Agreement  of  1870  in 
the  public  press,  secular  and  relig- 
ious, 182-214. 

Dixon,  John,  D.D. :  chairman  of  com- 
mittee on  Theological  Seminaries, 
Assembly  of  1893,  286 :  his  report  at 
Washington,  287-291. 

Dodge,  William  E.,  22;  unfair  treat- 
ment of  Union  Seminary  by  the  De- 
troit Assembly,  277. 

Duryea,  Joseph  Tuttle,  D.D.  :  bio- 
graphical sketch  of,  390-391. 

Dwight,  Theodore  W.,  LL.D.:  emi- 
nent jurist,  48. 

E. 

Ecclesiastical  Control  :  is  such 
direct  control  essential  to  efficiency, 
sound  teaching,  and  usefulness  of 
theological  seminaries?  293-297. 

Erskine,  Dr.:  opi)oses  second  resolu- 
tion, 119. 

Emm/eli/it,  The :  editorial,  29  ;  letter 
from  Dr.  Beatty,  85  ;  letter  from  Dr. 
Parkhur.st,  94 ;  article  in  numl)er 
for  May   21st,    1891,    131  ;  of  June 


11,    1891,    132; 
1870,"  139-144. 


■  The  Compact  of 


F. 


Fagnani,  Charles  Prosper,  D.D. 

instructor  in  Bil)lical  Tlieology,  840 

lectures  on  the   Englisli  Bible,  'M2 
Fayerweather,    Daniel   B.:  gift   to  en 

dowment  fund,  85. 
Field,  Henry    M.,   70;  letter   to    him 

from  Dr.  Hamilton,  151. 

Fogg,  Mrs.  Elizabeth  :  gift  of  i?20,00() 
to  the  lil)rary,  as  the  "  William  H. 
Fogg  Memorial,"  857. 

Frame,  Rev.  James  Everett,  M.A.  : 
instructor  in  the  New  Testament  de- 
partment, 840. 

Frazer,  David  R.,  D.  D. :  his  charge  to 
Dr.  Briggs  on  his  inaugm-ation  to 
chair  of  Biblical  Theology  at  Union, 
588-543. 

Froude,  J.  A.  :  letters  to  Charles  But 
ler,  508-512. 

G. 

Gallagher,  Joseph  S.:  a  director,  36. 

Gates,  Rev.  Oliver  Hamilton,  Ph.D.: 
instructor   in  Biblical  Theology  for 

1891-92,  340. 

General  Assembly:  its  control  over  the 
(Jld  School  Seminaries,  3-5  ;  veto 
power  given  to  it  by  Union  Semin- 
ary in  1870,  19-21  ;  memorial  from 
Princeton's  directors,  31  ;  memorial 
from  Union's  directors,  31-38  ;  as- 
sumes a  transfer  and  election  to  be 
similar,  50  ;  acceptance  of  ofler  of 
Union  Seminary  in  1870,  55-60  ; 
frequent  misapiirehension  of  the  ex- 
tent of  the  veto  power,  60-65  ; 
organization  of  Detroit  Assembly 
and  report  of  Standing  Committee 
on  Tiieological  Seminaries,  92-134  ; 
action  of  Assembly  on  Dr.  Brigg.s, 
134-157  ;  its  proper  sphere,  136, 
137  ;  testimony  and  protest  called 
forth  by  its  action  at  Detroit,  147  ; 
agreement  of  1870,  iiow  regarded 
at  Detroit,  159  ;  |)ersonnel  of  Stand- 
ing Committee  on  Theological  Semi- 
naries, 163 ;  High-Church  theory 
about  the  powers  of,  214-22!  ;  ex- 
tract from  rejiort  of  Standing  Com- 
mittee on  Theological  Seminaries  to 


572 


INDEX. 


Assembly  of  1870,  at  Philadelpliin, 
230  ;  objection  to  aiinullins;  agree- 
ment between  it  and  Union  on 
account  of  other  seminaries,  248-251; 
Assembly  of  1892  asked  by  Union's 
directors  to  annul  said  agreement, 
253;  their  memorial,  255-262;  at 
Portland,  1892,  report  of  Standing 
Committee  on  Seminaries,  Dr.Mutch- 
more,  chairman,  263  ;  action  of  As- 
sembly of  1893  on  Union  Seminary, 
286-292. 

Gillett,  Charles  R.,  D.D.:  librarian  of 
Union  Seminary,  77  ;  instructor  in 
Methodology  and  Ribliograithy,  340; 
his  paper  on  the  library,  352-362. 

Gillet,  Dr.  Ezra  H. :  his  interest  in  the 
library,  354. 

Gray,  Dr.:  his  editorial  in  Inter ior,\?>Z. 

Green,  "William  Henry,  D.D. :  moder- 
ator, 92. 

Gurley,  Phineas  Densmore,  D.  D.  :  at 
Indianapolis,  455,  4()4,  477,  486, 
498  ;  sketch  of  life,  498. 

H. 

Hadyn,  C.  H.,  D.  D,  LL.D,:  extract 
from  sermon  of,  147. 

Haines,  Richard  T.,  22. 

Hall,  Rev.  Charles  Cuthbert,  D.D.  • 
professor,  and  president  of  the  fac- 
ulty, 339  ;  passages  from  his  inau- 
gural address,  373-383. 

Hall,  John,  D.D.,  LL.D.  :  brief 
sketch  of  his  life,  388,  389. 

Hall,  Robert  :  his  opinion,  of  John 
M.  Mason's  preaching,  298. 

Hall,  Rev.  Thomas  Cumming,  D.D. : 
professor  of  Christian  Ethics,  339  ; 
to  give  a  course  on  the  English 
Bible,  342. 

Hamilton,  Alexander:  a  friend  of 
John  M.  Mason,  299. 

Hamilton,  S.  M.,  D.D.:  letter  of,  151, 
152. 

Hastings,  Thomas  S.,  D.D.,  LL.D.: 
President  Faculty  of  Union,  164  ; 
paper  presented  on  behalf  of  board 
to  Conference  Committee,  165  ;  letter 
quoted,  180  ;  his  memorandum  on 
question  of  arbitration,  2()()-26S ; 
letter  to,  from  Mr.  James,  2S4  ;  let- 
ters to,  from  Dr.  I'atterson  cpiotcd, 


323-328  ;  resigns  as  president  in 
1897,  339  ;  his  charge  at  inaugura- 
ticm  of  Dr.  Hall,  368-372;  his 
letter  on  the  life  of  Henry  Dav, 
392-394. 
Hatfield,  Edwin  F.,  21  :  at  meeting  of 
directors,  May  1870,  36  ;  Dr.  Adams 
confers  with,  50 ;  member  of  Board 
of  Directors,  162  ;  prepares  first  gen- 
eral catalogue  of  the  seminary,  360. 
Hathaway,  Dr.  Israel  W.:  extract  from 

speech  to  Assembly,  110-114. 
Herald  and  Pre.fihyter :  article  in  num- 
ber of  December  2d,  1891,  by  Dr. 
Rolierts,  184  ,  quotations  from  same, 
185-189. 
Hitchcock,  Roswell  D.,  70  ;  Dr.  Bart- 
lett's  tribute  to  him,  109;  his  nom- 
ination to  chair  of  Church  History 
opposed,  241. 
Hodge,  Dr.  A. A.:  letter  to  Dr.  H.  B. 
Smith,   46-48  ;     an    editor    of  The 
Presbyterian  Review,  329. 
Hodge,      Dr.    Charles,    20  ;     charges 
against  New    School,   21  ;    protests 
against  reunion,  35  ;    editor  of  the 
Princeton   Benew,    37  ;  his  teaching 
at  Princeton,  153. 
Howe,  Fisher,  36. 
Humphrey,    E.    W.    C.  :    member    of 

Arbitration  Committee,  288. 
Huntington,   Dr.,  of  New  York  :  en- 
dorses Dr.  Briggs,  335. 


J. 


Jacobits,  Rev.  M.  W.:  extract  from 

"The  Assemblies  of  1869,"  17,  IS. 

James,  D.  Willis,  36 ;  statement  at 
board  meeting,  39-41  ;  protest  of 
May  9th,  52  ;  ])rotests  against  veto 
]iower,  162  ;  speech  at  Conference 
Connnittee  quoted,  276,  277  ;  letter 
to  Dr.  Hastings  in  October,  1892, 
284 ;  letter  of  his  referring  to  cases 
of  Drs.  Briggs  and  Smith,  quoted, 
335. 

Johnson,  Dr.  Ilerrlck :  statement  at 
Assembly  of  1893,  279. 

Johnston,  John  Taylor  :  biographical 
sketch  of,  389. 

.lunkin,  Cieorge  :  member  of  Confer- 
enci' Connnittee  :  urges  su))i)ression  of 
papers,   181  ;  speech    on   arbitration 


INDEX. 


573 


at  Portland  quoted,  269-271  ;  mem- 
ber of  Arljitration  Committee,  288. 

Junkin,  Rev.  Dr.  George :  extract 
from  life  of,  21 C  ;  Stonewall  Jack- 
son's father-in-law,  215. 

Junkin,  David  X.,  D.D. :  brother  of, 
and  author  of  life  of  George  Junkin, 
215. 

K. 

KiNGSLEY,  E.  M.:  treasurer  and  re- 
corder of  Union  Seminary  ;  his  state- 
ment of  the  endowments,  210-212  ; 
messenger  from  the  directors  to  the 
Assembly  at  Portland,  Oregon. 

Knox,  George  William,  D.D.:  profes- 
sor of  the  Philosophy  and  History 
of  Religion,  339. 


Lane  Seminary  :  opinion  of  Mr. 
Justice  Matthews  regarding  its  re- 
lation to  the  General  Assembly  227; 
rejiort  of  its  Committee  quoted,  227; 
bylaw  quoted,  228. 

Lewis,  Taylor,  70. 

Library  of  Union  Seminary  :  nucleus 
formed  by  purchase  of  the  VanEss 
collection  in  1838,  352  ;  tlie  Gillett 
collection  of  pamphlets  and  early 
American  titles,  355,  356  ;  the  Hat- 
field collection,  356  ;  the  Henry  B. 
Smith  memorial,  357  ;  the  Hymno- 
logical  department,  357,  358 ;  the 
historical  department  and  gift  of 
Cliarles  W.  Hassler,  358,  359 ;  col- 
lection on  Systematic  Theology,  359; 
on  Practical  Theology,  359. 

Logan,  Dr.:  otiers  amendment  to  re- 
port, 104  ;  explains  it,  115. 

Ludlow,  Dr.:  opinion  on  arbitration 
proposal,  276. 

M. 

Madison,  Mb.  :  influence  in  first  Con- 
gress, 64. 

Mail  and  Expi-ess:  attacks  Union  Sem- 
inary and  Dr.  Briggs,  331. 

Martineau,  Dr.:  referred  to  in  Dr. 
Briggs'  address,  as  an  example  of 
those  who  find  God  through  the 
Reason,  316. 

Mason,   Ei-skine:  a  founder  of  Union 


Seminary,  298  ;  author  of  it.s  \Ai\n, 
298-299. 

Mason,  John  M.:  renowned  Presby- 
terian divine,  298. 

Mathews,  Stanley :  eminent  lawyer, 
his  advice  to  Directoi-s  of  Lane 
Seminary,   227. 

McAlpin,  Mr.  David  H.:  his  interest 
in  and  gifts  to  the  library,  354  ;  his 
gift  of  Greek  Testaments,  collection 
of  the  late  Dr.  Isaac  H.  Hall,  358. 

McCook,  John  J.:  argument  against 
Union  Seminarv,  73-91;  urges  veto, 
123. 

McCormick  Seminary  :  how  started,  4; 
its  amended  constitution,  4. 

McDongall,  Thomas:  author  of  "Union 
Seminary  vs  the  general  Assembly 
of  the  Presbyterian  Church"  ,  "The 
Case  to  Date,""  198;  same  quoted,  1 98- 
204;  second  pamphlet,  204;  tpiota- 
tions  from  his  second  panq)hlet 
against  the  Directors  of  Union  Sem- 
inary, 205-209;  his  High  Church 
theories,  214. 

McGiffert,  Arthur  Cushman,  D.D., 
Professor  of  Church  History,  339. 

McKibbin,  Dr.  :  member  of  Detroit 
Standing  Committee  on  Theological 
Seminaries,  93  ;  extract  from  his 
speech  on  report,  95 ;  author  of 
"Union  Seminarv  and  the  Assem- 
bly," 1 92-4;  same  quoted  1  96-197; 
his  High  Church  theories,  214. 

McLean,  Col.  Wm.  E.,  description  of 
his  visit  to  Charles  Butler,  at  his 
summer  home,  526-529. 

McPherson,  Rev.  Simon  J.,  D.D.,  ad- 
dress on  Dr.  Worcester,  delivered  by 
invitation  of  Union's  Board  of  Dirci'- 
tors,  in  Adams  Chapel,  April,  1893, 
401,  402. 

Miller,  Samuel,  24. 

Morgan,  Governor,  gift  to  endowment 
fund,  80-81;  letter  to  Dr.  Adams  on 
.same  subject,  83  ;  "Morgan  Hall," 
hisgiftto  Williams  College,  H4;  .Mc- 
Cook refers  to  him,  85  ;  endows  tlie 
library,  357. 

Morris,  Dr.  E.  D. :  Professor  at  Lane 
Seminary,   139. 

Murray,  Logan  C.  :  member  of  arbitra- 
tion conunittee,  288. 


574 


INDEX. 


Musgravo,  George  W.,  D.  D. :  speech 
of,  15-17;  report  at  Old  School  As- 
sembly, 42;  expression  in  1871,  44; 
statement  in  1869  when  presenting 
roport  of  Conference  Committee, 
174. 

Mntchmore,  S.  A,  D.  L). :  chairman 
Committee  on  Theological  Sem- 
inaries, 262. 

N. 

Nelson,  Henry  A.,  D.  D. :  extract 
from  letter,  137-139. 

New  School  General  Assembly;  resolu- 
tion of  1857,  12;  concessions  asked 
for  by  Old  School,  46; 

New  York  iSV«  :  article  on  Union  Sem- 
inary by  Thomas  McDougall  in  issue 
of  October  17th,  1892,  198;  com- 
ment on  the  gift  of  Messrs.  James, 
Brown,  Dodge  and  Jesup,  Novem- 
ber 17,  1892,  285. 

New  York  University :  students  of 
Union  admitted  to  sjjccial  courses  at, 
340,  341  ;  degree  of  B.  D.  given  on 
recommendation  of  University  fac- 
ulty, 343. 

Northwestern  Theological  Seminary: 
report  to  general  Assembly  in  1871, 
225. 


Parkhurst,  Dr.:  extract  from  letter 
to  the  Emngeliat  94;  commissioner 
to  Assembly,  100;  extract  from  let- 
ter, 101. 

Patterson,  Robert  W.,  D.  D. :  extract 
from  letter  of,  148;  extract  from 
another  letter,  150;  letters  to  Dr. 
Hastings  on  the  Briggs  case  quoted, 
323-328. 

Patton,  Francis  L.,  D.D.,  LL.D.: 
chairman  Committee  on  Theological 
Seminaries,  93;  his  counse  as  such, 
95-96;  extracts  from  speech,  121- 
123;  urges  decision  by  A.ssembly, 
123;  speech  on  .same,  126;  his  kind- 
ness to  Dr.  Briggs,  128;  chairman 
Standing  Committee,  164;  speech 
quoted,  185. 

I'otter,  Bishop:  welcomes  Dr.  Briggs, 
335. 

Prentiss,  Dr.  letter  from  Dr.  Hastings, 
180  ;  an  open   letter  from   Thomas 


McDougall,  204-209  ;  author  of 
paper  on  "The  Problem  of  the  Veto 
Power,  and  How  to  Solve  it,"  223; 
resigns  Skinner  and  McAlpin  pro- 
fessorship in  1897,  339  ;  letter 
from  Wordsworth,  quoted,  463. 

Prentiss,  S.  S.:  his  tight  with  repudia- 
tion in  Mississippi,  463. 

Presbyterian  and  Reformed  Review : 
article  by  Dr.Wartield  in  number 
of  July,  1892,  quoted,  189-192. 

Presbyterian  Church  :  what  it  should 
stand  for,  154;  what  is  the  best 
method  of  influencing  wisely  and 
effectually  the  training  of  its  own 
young  pastors?  244. 

Presbyterian  Review  :  Dr.  PrentLss  a 
member  of  its  committee,  319  ;  Dr. 
Briggs  the  founder  and  senior  editor, 
319. 

Presbyterian,  The :  extract  quoted, 
254;  Rev.  S.  A.  Mutchmore,  D.D. 
one  of  the  editors  of,  262. 

Princeton  Meview:  article  in  number  of 
April,  1870,  30. 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary  :  its 
relation  to  theGeneral  Assembly,  4, 
5;  its  founding  in  1812,  24;  ap- 
peals to  Dr.  Adams,  26  ;  pa|)er  pres- 
ented at  annual  meeting  of  directors 
in  April  1870,  31  ;  its  constitu- 
tion amended,  235. 


R. 


Radcliffe,  Wallace,  D.D.:  paator 
of  Fort  Street  Presbyterian  Church, 
Detroit,  92. 

Ramsey,  Dr.  :  extract  from  speech, 
115-117. 

Relation  of  Theological  Seminaries  in 
the  (31d  School  branch  to  theGeneral 
Assembly,  3-5. 

Report  of  Committee  on  Theological 
Seminaries,  55-58  ;  report  of  same 
at  Detroit  Assembly,  92-134. 

Record  from  official  Journal  of  As- 
sembly of  1871,  (51. 

Revision  and  anti-revision,  330  ;  de- 
bate on,  between  Di-s.  Patton  and 
Briggs,  330. 

Rice,  Dr.  L.  N. :  member  of  Old  School 
Assembly,    153. 

Roberts,  William  II.  :  Secretary  Com- 


INDEX. 


575 


mittee  of  Conference,  170  ;  aiitlior 
of  "The  Ecclesiastical  Status  of 
Tiieological  Seminaries,"  184;(jiiota- 
tions  from  same,  185-189  ;  liis  High 
Churcli  theories,  214  ;  his  statement 
at  Washin<i,ton  in  explanation  of  liis 
vote  condenming  Dr.  Eriggs,  quoted, 
32G. 

Robinson,  Edward  :  Dr.  Bartlett'  s  tri- 
bute to  him,  109  ;  apprehension  as 
to  his  views,  242  ;  cliair  of  Biblical 
Theology,  established  1890,  339;  for 
many  years  in  charge  of  the  library 
of  Union,  353. 

llomish  Baptism :  action  on  by  Old 
School  Assembly,  153. 

s. 

Sage,  Eussell  :  gift  to  endowment 
fund,  85. 

Schaff,  Philip  :  sketch  of  his  life,  420- 
422  ;  congratulatory  address  sent 
him  bv  faculty  of  Berlin  University, 
422-424. 

Shedd,  William  Greenougli  Thayer  : 
biographical  sketch  of,  418-420. 

Skinner,  Thomas  H. :  moderator,  12  ; 
a  leader  of  the  New  School,  21  ; 
Dr.  Bartlett' s  tribute  to  him,  109  ; 
letter  to  Mr.  Norman  White  quoted, 
305-307. 

Smith,  Dr.  Henry  B. :  his  views  while 
professor,  10  ;  moderator,  12  ; 
"Hero  of  Reunion",  21  ;  objections 
to  Joint  Committee's  report,  25  ; 
"Fox  Without  a  Tail,"  28  ;  against 
ecclesiastical  control  of  Union  Sem- 
inary, 37  ;  his  coming  to  New  York, 
43;  regards  Dr.  A.  A.  Hodge's  scheme 
impracticable,  48  ;  commissioner 
from  Presbytery  of  New  York,  61  ; 
Dr.  Bartlett's  tribute  to  him,  109  ; 
words  of,  1 57 ;  letter  from  Dr. 
Hodge,  161  ;  letter  from  same,  175  ; 
his  own  views  quoted,  176  ;  once 
su})posed  to  be  too  ardent  an  ad- 
mirer of  "German  Theology,"  240  ; 
letters  from  Dr.  Briggs,  quoted,  314; 
in  charge  of  tiie  library  for  many 
years,  353  ;  supervises  library  col- 
lection on  Systematic  Tlieology,  35G. 

Smith,  Prof.  Henry  P.:  makes  opening 
speech  at  Assembly  of  1891,  105  ; 
tried  for  heresy,  323  ;  debates  in 
tlie  Presliyterian  Review  on  Higlier 
Criticism,"  329, 


Smith,  F.  Ralston,  I).  I).  :  chairman 
Arl)itration  Conniiittee,  288. 

Smitii,  (Joldwin  :  letter  to  Cliarles  P.ut- 
ler,  513,  514. 

Stearns,  Jonatiian  F.,  21  ;  at  directors' 
meeting,  36  ;  member  of  Joint  Com- 
mittee of  Conference,  42  ;  his 
sagacity  and  forethought,  43;  his 
advice  souglit,  50 ;  sketch  of  his 
life,  394-400  ;  extract  from  Rev. 
Dr.  Fiske's  eulogy  on  him,  398  ; 
minute  adojjted  by  Board  of  Direc- 
tors on  his  death,  399,  400. 

Stearns,  Lewis  F.:  professor  at  Bangor, 
243 ;  his  sudden  death  deplored, 
244. 

Storrs,  Dr.  H.  M.:  iiis  (Jhristian  man- 
liness in  the  Washington  Asseml)lv, 
322. 

Stuart,  Moses  :  professor  at  Andover, 
242  ;  great  del)t  Biblical  learning 
owes  to  iiim,  242  ;  yet  regarded  as 
well  nigh  a  heretic,  242. 

Synod  of  Baltimore :  takes  action 
against  Union  Seminary,  173. 


Terry,  John  T.:  author  of  letter  to 

the  New  Y'^ork  Tribune,  210  ;    same 

quoted,  212. 
Thornwell,  Dr.:  member  of  Old  School 

Assembly,   153. 
Tribune,    New    York :    description    of 

organization  of  the    103rd  General 

Assembly,  93. 

u. 

Union  Theological  Seminary  :  rela- 
tion to  the  General  Assembly  in 
1870,  3;  its  origin,  design,  and 
status,  5-12;  its  founders,  their 
beliefs  and  j)rinciples,  7-9  ;  pream- 
ble to  its  constitution,  6,  7  ;  design  of 
its  founders,  and  their  "i)lan,"  9; 
reasons  for  giving  up  its  autonomy, 
21-36;  memorializes  General  As- 
seml)iy  against  election  of  jirofcssors 
directly  by  Assembly,  May,  1870, 
32-34 ;  Union  and  Princeton  in 
accord,  34-36  ;  action  antl  i)urpose 
of  directors  in  tliis  concession,  36- 
41  ;  did  the  directors  suppose  they 
were  oflc'ring  in  1H70  to  enter  into 
a  legal  compact  witli  tlie  .Assembly, 
41-48  ;  scojjeand  limitations  of  veto 


576 


INDEX. 


offered  to  the  Assembly  by  tlie  direc- 
tors, 48-55  ;  table  of  students  from 
1871  to  1891,  78  ;  extracts  from 
sermon  on  the  dutv  of  supporting  it, 
preached  1851,  8i-S3  ;  slighted  by 
Assembly,  101  ;  what  she  stands 
for,  156  ;  interpretation  of  agreement 
of  1870  by  Board  of  Directors,  158- 
182  ;  action  of  board  on  Conference 
Committee's  first  paper,  171 ;  action 
on  second  paper,  171  ;  paper  ad- 
dressed to  Conference  Committee  by 
Board  of  Directoi-s,  172;  section  of 
seminary's  charter.  225  ;  declaration 
of  faith  required  of  all  directors, 
230  ;  its  charter  not  denominational, 
232  ;  but  its  constitution  declares  it 
to  be  a  Presbyterian  Seminary,  232  ; 
sections  of  Arts.  I  and  II  of  the  con- 
stitution quoted,  233  ;  9th  Art.  of 
plan  of  Union  quoted,  233  ;  Board 
of  Directoi-s  memorialize  Assembly 
of  1892  to  annul  agreement  of  1870, 
253;  memorial  quoted,  255-262; 
final  action  of  the  board  annulling 
the  agreement,  280-284  ;  names  of 
directors  voting  on  same,  283 ;  de- 
sign of  its  founders  world-wide,  297- 
300 ;   their   hope   and    expectation, 

300  ;  their  design  crowned  with  the 
peace   and   charity   of    the    Gospel, 

30 1  ;  special  fitness  of  its  charter  to 
carry  out  this  design,  302  ;  Charles 
A.  Briggs  a  student  of,  313  ;  inaugu- 
rated professor  of  Hebrew  and  Cog- 
nate Languages,  314  ;  transferred  to 
chair  of  Biblical  Theology,  314  ; 
attacked  in  Mail  and  Express,  330, 
331  ;  a  student  spy  expelled,  331  ; 
its  internal  development  since  1886, 
339-345  ;  its  scholarships,  343  ; 
Christian  work,  343  ;  student  socie- 
ties, 344;  religious  services,  344; 
"  Union  Settlement,"  345  ;  the 
Alumni  Club,  345  ;  the  course  of 
study,  arranged  by  departments, 
346-351  ;  the  library  and  the 
alumni,  352-362  ;  first  catalogue, 
1876,  360;  second,  1886,  360; 
third,  1898,  360;  total  mimber  of 
students  and  list  of  alumni,  360  ; 
estMl)lislunent  of  the  P]dward  Robin- 
son Cliair  of  Biblical  Tlicology,  533, 
534  ;  l)r.  Briggs'  appointment  tliere- 
to,  535-543 ;  resolutions  of  tiie 
Board  of  Directors   sustaining    Dr. 


Briggs,  545  ;  statement  of  the  fac- 
ulty on  Dr.  Briggs'  inaugural  ad- 
dress, 545-550. 

V. 

VanDyke,    Henry    J.,    D.D.  :    his 

sudden  death,  122;  sketch  of  his 
life,  413-418  ;  letter  to  Dr.  Hast- 
ings quoted,  417. 

Van  Ess,  Brother  Leander  :  sketches  of 
his  connection  with  the  Benedictine 
Library,  352,  353. 

Veto  power :  quiescent  for  twenty  years, 
63  ;  sudden  mention  of  using  it  in 
1891,  li6;  determination  to  veto 
Dr.  Briggs,  104;  Assembly  takes 
vote  on  question,  122  ;  wrong  result- 
ing from  it,  135  ;  problem  of,  and 
how  to  solve  it,  paper  by  Dr.  Pren- 
tiss, published  March,  1892,222; 
extract  from  same,  223-240  ; 
reasons  why  agreement  of  1870 
should  be  annulled,  237  ;  would  it 
be  a  good  thing  applied  to  the  ap- 
pointment of  religious  editors  ?  245- 
248. 

Vincent,  Marvin  R.,  D.  D.:  extracts 
from  his  funeral  address  on  Charles 
Butler,  501-505. 

Virginia,  University  of,  312  ;  Y.  M. 
C.  A.  of,  the  first  in  a  college,  313. 

w. 

Wakfield,  Dr.:  editor  of  The  Presby- 
terian and  Reformed  Review,  189. 

White,  Norman,  22 ;  at  directors' 
meeting,  36 ;  letter  from  Dr.  Skin- 
ner, February,  1865,  305-307. 

Wilson,  James  Patriot,  36. 

W^orcester,  John  IL,  Jr.,  D.D.  :  offers 
substitute  amendment,  104  ;  extract 
from  speech,  117-121;  biographi- 
cal sketch  of,  400  ;  memorial  dis- 
course on  him  delivered  by  Dr. 
McPherson,  401-412. 

Wordsworth  :  letter  to  Dr.  Prentiss, 
(juoted,  469. 

Woodrow,  Prof.,  143. 

Y. 

YouN(i,  Dr.:  Moderator  of  Assembly 
of  1892,  133. 


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